Class consciousness

Rating: 10/10 (17 April 2005)

Jean Renoir was a man behind this masterpiece of the French cinema. It stands as an anti-war document by itself. The incredible DVD version looks as great today, perhaps, as when the original film was released. The screen play by M. Renoir and Charles Spaak was the original model, which many other films that came later, copied and profited from.
"La Grande Illusion" presents us a group of men that come together because of the war. If there were no war, none of these men would have met, let alone, would ever have crossed paths in real life. The top brass in the European armies were headed by the aristocracy. These rich classes only intermingled with their peers; they only gave orders to their subordinates. WWII changed all that!
M. Renoir gets excellent acting from the three principals. Jean Gabin, as Lt. Marechal, shows why he was one of France's best actors. Pierre Fresnay, the aristocratic French Capt. Boeldieu, and Erich Von Stroheim, as Capt. Von Rauffenstein, his German counterpart, are amazing in the film.
Together with "The Rules of the Game", this film will always be one of the most cherished French films of all time.