La Grande Illusion

The game has its rules, toujours. "A golf course is for golf... A tennis court for tennis... A prison camp for escape." An officer's mess is the same or nearly on opposite sides of the Great War, the French lieutenant (Jean Gabin) has to miss his date for a mission and the German aviator (Erich von Stroheim) invites him and the captain (Pierre Fresnay) for lunch after shooting them down. Chivalry is an abstract concept aristocrats cling dearly to, "a vanishing privilege," freedom means getting your hands in the dirt for a tunnel that might collapse at any moment. Fraternité is the dream, a solidarity from the realization that divides are constructs and that people in conflict are much closer to each other than to the nations they represent—one illusion among many. "We'd each die of our own class ailment, if war didn't make all germs equal." Jean Renoir's noble European microcosm, a breathtaking lightness of spirit and delicacy of touch in the face of the gathering storm. The Old Guard is a broken imperial posture held together by a metallic harness, the fortress nurses a geranium while fastidious gloves conceal burns. "To be killed in war is a tragedy for a commoner. For you and me... it's a good way out." A chanson aids communication between Gallic prisoner and Teutonic guard, "La Marseillaise" is sung by an English inmate still in lipstick and rouge from his drag act. (Another Brit is played by the future director of Le Trou, part of a long line of influence that also includes A Man Escaped and The Bridge on the River Kwai.) The future rests with proletarian mechanic and nouveau-riche Jew (Marcel Dalio) on a snowy road, the stay with the young widow (Dita Parlo) has the camera pan to a table too wide for the dwindling family and later track through a window for the transitory idyll. "We each do our best." The finest critique is Renoir's own in The Elusive Corporal. Cinematography by Christian Matras. With Julien Carette, Gaston Modot, Georges Péclet, Werner Florian, and Jean Dasté. In black and white.