Classic Anti-War Movie

Rating: Null/10 (11 February 2010)

Spoilers.
Films like La Grande illusion have a lot to live up to. Widely acknowledged as a timeless classic, it's approached by the first-time viewer with a high level of expectation. As I watched the first twenty minutes or so I began to doubt the opinions of those who profess to know about such things. The forced, broad humour of the prisoners of war was off-putting and out of place. The comical yet annoying little French man who nearly suffocates in a tunnel would no doubt have received a few clouts within days of arriving at the camp if he lived in the real world instead of enjoying the tolerant good humour of his fellow prisoners.
But once the prisoners are separated and moved on (on the very day they plan to leave by the tunnel they have been digging for months) and the film concentrates more on the working class Marechal (Jean Gabin) and aristocratic Bourdieu, it seems to find itself. The war has displaced these prisoners – they play childish games as they watch children training to be soldiers – and the film almost seems to be taking them through a new life, one which they must grow and mature into. They play foolish pranks, dress up in costumes, undergo a kind of homo-erotic bonding as they observe how women's hair has grown so short that it is like sleeping with a boy – before all conversation and activity is stopped by the sight of a young comrade wandering around in women's clothing he has acquired for a stage show.
Marechal and Bourdieu are sent to a castle prison presided over by a German officer they have encountered before. The officer is played by Erich von Stroheim, and, in an understated performance, he speaks his lines with care. He too is a casualty of war, no longer able to fly because of injuries to his spine which leave him with his neck in a permanent brace. His character identifies with the aristocratic Bourdieu: they know the same people, and have possibly slept with the same woman. It's at this point that class distinction comes to the fore. Renoir emphasises the differences in class to illustrate the fact that, while we may not all be the same, war influences all our lives. 'The rich and noble glorify death in service,' one of the officers opines, 'but for the lower classes it's a tragedy.' Marechal and Rosenthal, a Jewish prisoner, escape from the castle and are offered refuge by a German widow. The German, the Jew and the Frenchman live in harmony, enjoying a blissful Christmas together. All the men in her life – her husband and brothers – have been taken by the war, all of them killed in battles that were great victories for Germany. By now the film has dropped all pretence of humour and reaches – mostly successfully – for something more profound. War inevitably separates this happy trinity (plus cute child), and Marechal's departure, without tears or overt sentiment, is almost devastating in its subtlety and grace.
By the time the film was over the near two-hour running time had passed in a blur. Our heroes make it safely to Switzerland, but Renoir is careful to avoid any hint of triumph; we see only two tiny figures trudging through the snow, watched by a troop of German soldiers who refrain from firing because their quarry has passed a border that Rosenthal has earlier declared to be meaningless. 'Borders are man-made,' he says, 'Nature couldn't care less.'