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La Grande Illusion, 1937
During WW1, French soldiers Marechal (Jean Gabin) and Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) are captured and end up in a prisoner of war camp run by the German military. Meeting up with another soldier called Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio), the men begin to plan an escape. Against these plans, we watch the relationship develop between the Boeldieu and the man running the camp, Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim), based on the fact that both men are upper class.
It's hard to go wrong with a prison escape movie, in my opinion, and what makes this film special is the way that it chooses to explore the anxieties and divisions around class rather than around nationalities.
In fact, the whole film often hinges on questions of elements that are entirely invented by people. In one scene, a character looks across a border and notes that you don't really see where the one country becomes another. "That is because men create frontiers" remarks his companion. It is a great moment because the distinction seems so absurd--there is this invisible line randomly drawn--and yet the lives and fates of the characters might rest on that invisible line.
Likewise the film portrays characters with an acute awareness of class, coming from both the lower class and upper class characters. Marechal and Rosenthal explicitly discuss at one point the alienation they feel from Boeldieu, chalking it up at first to "education", but then going on to say that there is a permanent way that society marks them as separate. "If we had no money we'd be beggars, but he'd still be a lord" remarks one character.
And on the flip side, we see the opposing viewpoints of Boeldieu and Rauffenstein. Rauffenstein sees his rank as something to be proud of. He is sad about the fact that the end of the war will mark the end of the aristocracy. Rauffenstein has been horribly damaged physically from the war, and walks around with a permanent neck brace, yet even them he bemoans being given an assignment away from the front. He repeatedly speaks about the noble enemy, and tries to keep the scope of the war in the field of "the pursuits of gentlemen". Boeldieu, on the other hand, takes a more cynical, almost fatalistic viewpoint on his own destiny. We repeatedly see Boeldieu chafe against displays of class privilege, such as openly questioning why his word is taken during a search while the other soldiers have their things rifled through.
I would not necessarily say that this film is anti-war, but more so that it sees war as yet another human invention, and a harmful one at that. Later in the film we meet a woman whose husband and brothers have all been lost in a battle --"Our greatest triumph," she says even-handedly--and now raises a child on her own.
And while this doesn't fit in anywhere else in the review, I did want to remark on one of my favorite moments in the film. (No spoilers!). Toward the beginning of the film the prisoners are putting together a theatrical production and they are provided with costumes. One of the soldiers comes into the room dressed in women's clothing, and slowly the other men becomes silent and just turn to stare at him. It would have been easy to play this as a comedic moment or make some homophobic joke, but instead the film lets us sit in the silence with the soldiers. You can just feel that all of the men are missing the women they left behind, and rather than being a punchline, it turns into a sweet, sad emotional beat.
This is a unique take on the prison-escape film, and specifically an interesting lens through which to view the prisoner-of-war escape film. I am still mulling over how I feel about the last 10 minutes or so.
La Grande Illusion, 1937
During WW1, French soldiers Marechal (Jean Gabin) and Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) are captured and end up in a prisoner of war camp run by the German military. Meeting up with another soldier called Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio), the men begin to plan an escape. Against these plans, we watch the relationship develop between the Boeldieu and the man running the camp, Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim), based on the fact that both men are upper class.
It's hard to go wrong with a prison escape movie, in my opinion, and what makes this film special is the way that it chooses to explore the anxieties and divisions around class rather than around nationalities.
In fact, the whole film often hinges on questions of elements that are entirely invented by people. In one scene, a character looks across a border and notes that you don't really see where the one country becomes another. "That is because men create frontiers" remarks his companion. It is a great moment because the distinction seems so absurd--there is this invisible line randomly drawn--and yet the lives and fates of the characters might rest on that invisible line.
Likewise the film portrays characters with an acute awareness of class, coming from both the lower class and upper class characters. Marechal and Rosenthal explicitly discuss at one point the alienation they feel from Boeldieu, chalking it up at first to "education", but then going on to say that there is a permanent way that society marks them as separate. "If we had no money we'd be beggars, but he'd still be a lord" remarks one character.
And on the flip side, we see the opposing viewpoints of Boeldieu and Rauffenstein. Rauffenstein sees his rank as something to be proud of. He is sad about the fact that the end of the war will mark the end of the aristocracy. Rauffenstein has been horribly damaged physically from the war, and walks around with a permanent neck brace, yet even them he bemoans being given an assignment away from the front. He repeatedly speaks about the noble enemy, and tries to keep the scope of the war in the field of "the pursuits of gentlemen". Boeldieu, on the other hand, takes a more cynical, almost fatalistic viewpoint on his own destiny. We repeatedly see Boeldieu chafe against displays of class privilege, such as openly questioning why his word is taken during a search while the other soldiers have their things rifled through.
I would not necessarily say that this film is anti-war, but more so that it sees war as yet another human invention, and a harmful one at that. Later in the film we meet a woman whose husband and brothers have all been lost in a battle --"Our greatest triumph," she says even-handedly--and now raises a child on her own.
And while this doesn't fit in anywhere else in the review, I did want to remark on one of my favorite moments in the film. (No spoilers!). Toward the beginning of the film the prisoners are putting together a theatrical production and they are provided with costumes. One of the soldiers comes into the room dressed in women's clothing, and slowly the other men becomes silent and just turn to stare at him. It would have been easy to play this as a comedic moment or make some homophobic joke, but instead the film lets us sit in the silence with the soldiers. You can just feel that all of the men are missing the women they left behind, and rather than being a punchline, it turns into a sweet, sad emotional beat.
This is a unique take on the prison-escape film, and specifically an interesting lens through which to view the prisoner-of-war escape film. I am still mulling over how I feel about the last 10 minutes or so.