A review of the 1939 classic French film “La Grande Illusion”
This is famous war, actually anti-war, film that has no battle scenes in it. Instead, most of the action is set in two prisoner of war camps in 1914, the first year of what was then known as the Great War or the war to end wars. The prisoners are French and the film is French, directed and co-written by Jean Renoir, son of the Impressionist painter. The main French characters are a working class man (Jean Gabin), an aristocrat (Pierre Fresnay) and a Jew (Marcel Dalio) who work together on an escape plan, while the lead German character is played by Erich von Stroheim who laments the declining power of the European nobility.
This powerful and moving film was released in 1937, when there were growing expectations that another world war was in the offing. Much of the Great War was on French soil and millions of French lost their lives, so there was a ready audience for a film that challenged the illusion of war and presented a humanist approach with the clear message that class and love are more important than nationality or language. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy banned the film and, after the German invasion of France in 1940, both occupied France and Vichy France withdrew the work in its home nation.