La Grande illusion is the same title as Norman Angell's book The Great Illusion (1909; rev. 1933), the latter version of which assisted Angell in earning the Nobel Peace Prize in the same year of publication. However, Renoir said that he'd chosen this title 'parce qu'il ne voulait rien dire de précis' ('because it had no precise meaning'), although he also said he made the film because he was a pacifist.
There are three main parts to this film set in World War I but in which we see none of the action of the war itself. A plane carrying the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin) and Captain de Boëldieu (an aristocrat) has been shot down by von Rauffenstein (also an aristocrat). The two men have survived and are now in a German prison camp with British and Russian soldiers from all walks of life.
Class divisions are of important note in this film, which shows how they can not only divide but unite: Rauffenstein and Boëldieu, despite the different sides they are on, nevertheless find important class similarities, and in certain respects it can be said that Boëldieu relates more to his aristocratic counterpart; and the wealthy Jew Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio) receives hampers of the finest food and drink which he shares with the French prisoners irrespective of their class. One talking point is expensive restaurants such as Maxim's and Fouquet's, which provokes Maréchal to comment that he's at home in an unassuming café with the local pinard (plonk).
Certainly uniting them is the desire to escape and they are digging a tunnel which is almost complete when they are moved to a more secure prison in the mountains: it is lack of a common language which prevents Maréchal from passing on knowledge of the tunnel to the new batch of prisoners. Nevertheless, work again begins on escape via a long rope from the new prison, which is again commanded by Rauffenstein, who has been grounded by injury. The friendly rapport between Rauffenstein and Boëldieu continues, although the German is forced by duty to shoot Boëldieu as he allows Maréchal and Rosenthal to escape: unfortunately, although he aimed at Boëldieu's legs, the wound is fatal but the aristocratic has freed the two people who are lower down in the class pecking order.
From the point of view of food, the rich Rosenthal and the working-class Maréchal are now equals as the slow progress towards Switzerland begins and they eke out the sugar they have taken from the prison camp. But their passage towards neutral territory is stalled for a brief time as they take refuge on a farm. This again shows the common bond of fraternity not between classes but nationalities as the two men are warmly greeted by the lonely German widow Elsa (Dita Parlo), whose husband died at Verdun. And this is more than fraternity, as Elsa and Maréchal fall in love, and it is with great reluctance that Maréchal has to leave.
A pacifist film of fellowship in time of war this certainly is, although there are ambiguities, and interesting gender questions in this important movie, but this is not the place to go into them.
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