La Grand Illusion

I would hesitate to call this film the cinematic equivalent of All Quiet on the Western Front, as that book had already been adapted into a film by 1937, when Grand Illusion was released. However, they are certainly contemporaneous; but Renoir utilises the possibilities and language of film to create a humanist, anti-war masterpiece that was both frightfully prescient and remains remarkably relevant today.

Set during the First World War, Grand Illusion tells of three French airmen interned in a German prisoner of war camp. Filled with a mix of gentle slapstick, social and political satire, witty dialogue, observational social realism and a surprising emotional heft, the film captures the inhumanity and sheer absurdity of war with hardly a shot being fired in the entire film.

Grand Illusion is a strikingly modern film in many ways - the camera moving elegantly around the spaces and characters, involving the viewer, as well as a carefully crafted mise-en-scene that utilises a deep focus, action in the fore-, middle- and background. It is not nearly as formal and distant as Renoir's next film, La Regle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game), and coupled with the lively banter between the characters is a much warmer film.

It is hard to describe what I felt after leaving the theatre, but I think it can be best described as a degree of elation, and this eludes to the humanist quality of the film that I mentioned earlier. This sense comes from the three lead characters, who despite all being from different social strata, still interact, converse and help one another, almost in defiance of the 'grand illusions' of state, class, and war that ironically placed them in such a situation to begin with.