La Grande illusion
(Grand Illusion)

France (1937): War/Drama

It's long been one of the revered classics of international cinema, but there is no fine layer of dust over La Grande illusion. Jean Renoir's film is just as vibrant, exciting, and wise as it has ever been. The story is set during World War I, mostly in a couple of German POW camps, where two very different French prisoners plot to escape: the working-class officer Maréchal (Jean Gabin, "the French Spencer Tracy") and the upper-class de Boieldieu (Pierre Fresnay). The suspenseful backbone of the story is formed by these escape attempts, but Renoir is primarily concerned with the way people treat each other, and especially with how class and nationality inform human relations. Most compelling of all the film's characters is the aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, unforgettably incarnated by stiff-backed Erich von Stroheim; although he runs a prison camp, von Rauffenstein cannot help but strike up a friendship with de Boieldieu, a kindred spirit from the doomed nobility.

There is nothing dewy or naïve about Renoir's vision (and two years after the release of this antiwar film, Europe was plunged into another world war), yet Grand Illusion is one of those movies that makes you feel good about such long-outmoded ideas as sacrifice and brotherhood. After it won a prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1937, Mussolini banned the film and the Nazis declared the it "Cinematographic Enemy Number One." There can be no higher praise. (Amazon.com)

Grand Illusion holds the distinction of being the first foreign-language film (the dialogue is French, German, English and Russian) to be nominated for Best Picture.

 Use this link to view a clip from La Grande illusion on TCM.com.

1 nomination