Grand Illusion

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Grand Illusion ★★★★ La Grande Illusion 1937

Unshakably classic anti-war film by Renoir, in which French prisoners of war attempt to escape from their German captors during WWI. An indictment of the way Old World, aristocratic nobility was brought to modern bloodshed in the Great War. Renoir's optimism remains relentless, but was easier to believe in before WWII. In French, with English subtitles. 111m/B VHS, DVD . FR Jean Gabin, Erich von Stroheim, Pierre Fresnay, Marcel Dalio, Julien Carette, Gaston Modot, Jean Daste, Dita Parlo, Georges Peclet, Werner Florian, Sylvain Itkine, Jacques Becker; D: Jean Renoir; W: Jean Renoir, Charles Spaak; C: Christian Matras; M: Joseph Kosma. N.Y. Film Critics ‘38: Foreign Film.