La grande illusion

Grand Illusion is a movie about class that doesn't hate anyone. How often does that happen? Yes, there are namby-pamby movies that "show all sides" and bore everyone with their non-existent point-of-view, but that's not what I mean. And, of course, there are plenty of movies about class that reveal their biases from the start; I'm rather fond of Eat the Rich movies, myself. But Grand Illusion is about class without dismissing any of its characters. The aristocrats whose world is disappearing are presented as tragic figures, stuck in a code of life that is rapidly becoming meaningless. Both aristocrats know their time is past; the French one accepts this as probably a good thing, the German one doesn't (and blames the French one's sentiments on the French Revolution), but they both know their way of life is soon to be forgotten. And it would be easy for Renoir, when he made the film in the mid-30s a French communist with proletarian sympathies, to demonize these two. But he doesn't; he allows them their humanity, which is the most characteristic feature of Renoir movies in any event (he is the great humanist of movie history).

Nor does he show the collapse of the old way as an unfortunate preface to chaos. The bourgeois characters are good people. The world might be safe in their hands, as safe as in any other hands at least (except for the propensity among nations for war). All of the middle and lower-class characters in the movie are presented as people, not stereotypes. But Renoir doesn't accomplish this by collapsing all class boundaries into some homogenous universalism. These characters remain trapped within their class, and their class is clear to the viewer. The movie is not about the absence of class but about the crushing ironies of the very real existence of class in the lives of the characters. To show all classes without condescension, while retaining a particular point of view (that while people are good, it's best that the aristocratic world is in decline), is pretty amazing.

In Grand Illusion, the nominal hero is working/middle-class, but the upper class isn't evil and the lower class isn't romanticized or dismissed. And it's all accomplished in such a seamless way that many, if not most, first-time viewers might easily think it was a fine movie but something less than great. It sneaks up on you, and more than just about any film you can name, rewards multiple viewings.

In the old European order, pre-WWI, one nation's aristocracy made war on another's not out of love for king and country or hatred for the enemy, but out of a sense of honor and duty. War was what they did, these aristocrats of l'ancien regime. Their castles in the air, their noble worldview, their time-honored way--all would crumble, as they very well knew, if the line between the rabble and themselves were allowed to continue to blur. The masses had new and different loyalties.

"La Grande Illusion" in 1914 was the hope that that old order could be preserved in the face of surging democracy and noveau-riche power. Jean Renoir's film presents us with an irony: the martial elites of France and Germany needed the war to vouchsafe their very identities, and yet that conflict would prove their undoing. Whatever side won, the hoi polloi would gain the upper hand.

Restored from its original camera negative, the 1937 French film now on DVD sparkles like new. The restoration lets us see that nothing is dated about this work of genius, even if its POW-camp situations today seem stock and its characters stereotypes of nationality and class. The fine acting, the deft pacing, and the fluid camerawork make for a film that could have been produced last year. The whispered subtext, the nuanced conflicts, and the ironic complexity make for a film that is timeless.

The subtext is the eternal tension between "in the air" and "on the ground," "on high" and "here below," "from a distance" and "up close and personal." From a distance, war is no more rancorous than a chess game, with national boundaries as artificial as the squares on a chessboard. Up close and personal, war separates humans from their lives and aspirations, lovers from their beloveds.

The old elites loved nothing but their class and its accoutrements. It was peasant stock and noveau riche who belted out national anthems and honored the borders which in wartime could sever lover from lover but, paradoxically, also shield prison-camp escapees who made it across them to sanctuary. Renoir's genius was that he could show that an emergent new order, manifestly better on the ground, comes at a steep price, tragically, in the air.

'La Grande Illusion' is one of those films that reaffirm a film lover's belief that cinema as an art form can be used by filmmakers to bring people together.

The screenplay for the film written by Renoir and Charles Spaak is extremely deep and multi layered. Although the film is set during the WW1 era, the timing of the making and release of the film is very important. This was released when the Nazi party in Germany was becoming more and more powerful and another global war was imminent. I can't help but think that this film was Renoir's attempt to make people stray away from the extremism that they were getting influenced by. Although it didn't achieve its intended objective, one can't help but admire the artist's intentions.

If one has to summarise 'La Grande Illusion' in one phrase, I think the phrase to be used is 'the power of humanism'. Renoir loves every single character in the film. Not just the French soldiers, even the German soldiers get treated with respect. The Germans are not stereotypical caricatures as is found in some other films of this era. The German officers treat their French prisoners with kindness. This shows Renoir understood that there were ordinary, innocent German people who were caught in the middle of the wars being instigated by the politicians in power.

Apart from underlining the humanism and the similarity between the soldiers on all sides, the film also works on other themes. The film explores the changing times. We see the men who have been detached from the outside world due to the war feel surprised when they hear that women are keeping their hair short. One of them equates this appearance with the appearance of a boy. This is clearly Renoir commenting upon the progress women were making at the time in trying to gain equality. We also get the angle of the changing nature of the class distinctions. Rauffenstein and Boeldieu belonged to the higher classes. They understand and respect each other even though they belong to Germany and France respectively. We see them reminisce about the old times and talk about how they feel out of place in a fast changing world where the class distinctions are getting distorted as they embark on an era where people belonging to lower classes as well as Jews will be equal to them. We also get a subtle introspection on the concept of masculinity in this changing society.

Renoir through his visuals shows how all the characters are at times literally and at times thematically trapped by the war. We get his signature shots of frames within frame to metaphorically imply that the characters are trapped. Every character, be it French or German is trapped mentally and physically by the war. Even a high officer like Rauffenstein feels trapped in his claustrophobic chamber. They are all detached from the outside world. They want freedom, but are apprehensive about whether they will be ready for what awaits them on the outside once they get their 'freedom'. This internal apprehension of not being ready to live on the outside reminded me of 'The Shawshank Redemption'.

Like Powell & Pressburger did with 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp', Renoir is bidding farewell to an era where even wars were fought with a gentlemanly attitude. Although he does touch upon the class distinctions and some other aspects that plagued that earlier era, but he is primarily concerned with the humanism of that characters. So, we see the kindness between soldiers belonging to different nations. This can lead to a a criticism that the film is a bit overly romanticised and is a bit of a wish fulfillment exercise as it doesn't depict the brutalities of war. But I think a brutally real account of WW1 was never Renoir's vision. In the midst of the rise of the Nazi Party and the huge possibility of another war, he wanted to make a film that makes the viewers renounce extremism and in the process instill the spirit of a unified Europe, no matter how unrealistic it may seem. This is why I think 'La Grande Illusion' will work brilliantly as a double feature with Kubrick's 'Paths of Glory'. While the first shows soldiers from different nations treating each other with kindness, the latter shows French officers being monstrously merciless to their own French colleagues.

Renoir's visual style is beyond impressive. He uses very little editing in most scenes, instead he constantly keeps moving the camera to reveal other characters in the room or to reveal new parts of the interior which were earlier not visible in the frame. He also uses deep focus effectively to make the visual language of the film very character-inclusive in the sense that all the characters find importance in a scene. This inclusive nature of his style executed by tracking shots is epitomised by the famous scene involving the singing of 'La Marseillaise', a scene where he practically uses no cuts.

Performance wise, I'll give special mention to Jean Gabin, Erich von Stroheim and Pierre Fresnay.

'La Grande Illusion' is a film that I can watch over and over again and get something new out of it on each viewing. It is rich in humanism, thematic depth and Renoir's brilliant directorial skills. The title of the film itself is layered and open to many interpretations. What was the grand illusion? Is it the illusion that one can achieve freedom from the suffering by escaping from prison camps or is it the illusion that the world that awaits these soldiers after the war ends will be the same as the one that they left behind? Or is war itself the grand illusion that creates barriers between human beings who are all the same, but get divided based on geographical borders? Maybe it is one of them, maybe it is all of them.

What makes Grand Illusion a great movie, and the reason that some of us keep returning to it, is that it can't be reduced to a single simple proposition, the way that recent war movies like Platoon ("war bad," to quote Tarantino's synopsis) or Saving Private Ryan ("war senseless") can. It's easy to be sentimental about war, even while deploring it, by focusing on the horror of it or by making heroes out of those who are forced to fight. Renoir deals instead with the far more complex mesh of differences and alliances that separate and divide our characters. And while his main characters all have a clear class/national/religious identity, he makes much more out of them than just sociological categories.

But trying to explain why Grand Illusion is such a great movie by charting all the conflicting bonds of nationality, class, religion, etc. doesn't explain why the movie is so powerful. To me it is in those scenes in which language either separates our characters (as when Marechal tries and fails to tell the British prisoners about the tunnel or asks why de Boeldieu uses "vous") or unites them (as when von Rauffenstein and de Boeldieu speak in English or the English officer (in drag) sings the Marseillaise or when Marechal finally learns a little German). In these cases, Renoir uses language-without hitting us over the head to make the point-to illustrate the conflict between his ideal of sympathy between humans and the differences of class, nationality and religion.

Now I know that this sounds just as dry and academic as other attempts to explain Grand Illusion. Maybe it is; the movie really does not need to be explained to be enjoyed. But these are the scenes that, for whatever reason, have always made the greatest impression on me.

Just saw it again on TCM, and now I see things in the film that make me question my high regard and admiration for it. This classic film has a special glow of humanity, which makes it unique and instinctively accessible. One can understand why it was such a hit in 1937. At the same time, this is not a surrealist film or a satire as the title might suggest, but an interpretation of horrific events from the point view of a humanist, and in that sense you get the inspirational message which seeks to outweigh other issues, but if you stop and think about the whole thing you end up appalled by some of the conclusions you might end up with. If it had successfully advanced the theme that war is hell and that men seek to preserve their humanity under these conditions, fine. But that is not the end result: the balance between the anti-war message and the idea that WWI was a gentlemen's war and that it brought the best out of men somehow leans on screen towards the latter and lends the film to negative interpretations. Renoir refuses to openly condemn war nor show its ugly face but by implication. And you can't say that wasn't Renoir's style, given his in-your-face condemnation of the attitudes of French's aristocracy prior to WWII in The Rules of the Game. Renoir emphasizes the men being pals and patriotic, eating well, joking, and dancing, which is what Renoir as a humanist understands men wish to do instead of fight, but the lack of any substantial sense of horror and suffering makes for an unbalanced film. The suffering is almost all psychological (life away from home and wife, loneliness) but it is hardly felt, except in the part of the story with the German woman, which is very successfully told. The physical suffering is not exposed at all, except for von Stroheimm's ailments, which are discussed tangentially, and even that suffering is mentioned but not felt. Renoir seems to expect the audience to presuppose the horror and the suffering. Renoir's conclusions in this film are confusing, naive and might even be considered downright insulting, particularly in the historic period this film was made. The problem might not be in Renoir's point of view or intentions but in what he actually put on the screen. So all in all, I'm not sure what Renoir is saying in this film, and therefore can not regard it as highly as I once did. I also agree with other reviewers that Renoir's technique is extraordinary but that the script is a mess. All in all, if you trust Renoir and stay with the humanistic theme and try to avoid any other interpretation you will still feel this is a great film, if not, then you will have serious reservations. I for one now have doubts.