When a filmmaker of the stature of Orson Welles remarks that a film is one he would choose to take "on the ark", it's difficult not to build up expectations of a masterpiece. This is precisely what Jean Renoir's La Grand Illusion amounts to, delivering a message which speaks of the transcendental nature of the human spirit and its ability to break down nationalistic boundaries. Renoir, son of the famous Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, tells the story of two French pilots who get shot down over German-held territory during the First World War and find themselves shuffled from one prisoner of war camp to another, biding their time to escape. Starring Jean Gabin and Pierre Fresnay as the pilots and featuring a dominating performance from Erich Von Stronheim, himself a notable director of the period, La Grand Illusion is all the more powerful given that it was made during a time when fascism was on the rise. La Grand Illusion is an anti-war film which ignores the physical horrors of battle, preferring instead to focus on those on the periphery, either in captivity or on the run amongst civilians. While it concludes with the protagonists setting off to return to the front to fight, it is clear that, for Renoir, war as a philosophy is what should be under attack, and that violence ultimately leads to the collapse of civilization.
