All Those Grand Illusions

Rating: Null/10 (18 August 2011)

A group of French officers in World War I become prisoners of war. This movie follows their experiences, their escape attempts, the kind of people they are. But that hardly touches on the greatness of Renoir's creation.
This is a movie about the illusions we live with. Some illusions help us survive unbearable situations. Other illusions are just accepted parts of our roles as citizens, as mechanics, as children or wealth or children of poverty.
It is an illusion that Rauffenstein and De Boildeau are at war with each other, that they are enemies when they've shared so many experiences together. The upper class and their conceits are shown to be absurd illusions.
At one point POWs dress up and rehearse for a theatrical show; one boyish soldier puts on women's clothes and thinks everyone will laugh -- nobody is laughing, the looks on their faces show their hunger to see even the illusion of a woman.
It is an illusion that a man who meets a woman far from home during a war will seek her out after the war -- that he makes a promise to return for her in a language she doesn't even understand. It is an illusion that Verdun and these other battles were great victories for Germany when they left one woman's dining table empty.
And the final, grandest illusion of all -- no matter how many times I see this movie it still gives me chills -- that there is such a thing as Switzerland. However absurd things may seem in the rest of the movie, the fact that someone can look out over a blanket of snow and say "That is Switzerland" ... whew.