Western Front Association - U.S. Branch - Movie Review of La Grande Illusion

GRANDE ILLUSION. A DVD Critical Review.

½ (out of five stars); September 1938, DVD 1999; Story by French Jean Renoir, actors include Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim, and others. Available at Amazon.com for $36, and other outlets. Reviewer Jim Minnoch may be reached at 1354 Hall Street, Manchester, NH 03104 or at jemcam@comcast.net

This movie is familiar to many World War I students having been rated as a masterpiece after being reconstructed by Renoir in 1958. It was banned immediately by the soon-to-be Axis powers when it was first introduced in 1938. The film uses Great War German prisoner-of-war camps and a German farm house as settings. The story itself is concerned with five French, captive, company-grade officers and their captors in what seems to be a love fest amongst friend and foe alike. If there is a message it must stem from that time when France and Germany were on the threshold of going to war again and the theme would be: "Why can we not just all get along together?" That, undoubtedly, is not what war is all about.

The story moves along nicely, and can be considered 90% entertainment, the remainder being somewhat about how nice and easy it is to be waiting out the war with friends. This certainly is far from the truth. There is no evidence that French junior officers were treated kindly or with military courtesies in the German detainment camps. Just the reverse appears in the histories of the war: when the Germans starved so did the POWs. This famous movie is often touted as anti-war, but nowhere do we see arguments against war for, after all, European countries were rearming for the most devastating war ever - this was not a time (in 1938) for nations to encourage men not to join the army.

Erich von Stroheim as the Commandant

One is taken aback by the excellent photography for the day, much improved in the 1950s, and the stirring pace of the subtitled, two-hour film, but there is no reliable history here. Jean Renoir has taken his proven magic wand and created a marvelous fictional account of how he (and apparently the rest of the world) would like to see war, in all of its thoughtful amenities, including romantic affections with the German Elsa in her farmhouse. Any student of the war can tell you immediately that there was no way that the aristocratic French Captain de Boeldieu was going to sacrifice his life so that two of the others might escape, presumably to rejoin their outfits. In this film, no one ever gets too dirty or hungry or goes without wine or camaraderie.

But, in the end, every one and every thing seems to be appropriately civilized and no one gets hurt (except poor de Boeldieu, who did it all for duty and country). At least we think that it all came out right, as we see the two escapees plod their way through snow to Swiss neutrality for the rest of the war. The question is: Will the lieutenant return to Elsa someday? There is something pleasurable here for almost every viewer, except the World War I student desperate for facts.

Created: 13 February 2004