The Criterion Collection #1: Grand Illusion

Grand Illusion

In 1990 Jean Renoir's war classic was finally released on the home video market as the first film in the Criterion Collection. It had been a long road getting there. As explained by Renoir himself the film had been cut, edited, and censored numerous times by many different countries, and with the original thought to have been lost during WWII it seemed that Gran Illusion would fade into the abyss. However the German soldiers had actually saved the film in one of their film archives in Berlin. It was reclaimed when the American soldiers took the city back. The history of Grand Illusion is an interesting parallel to the theme's of the film itself, War and how it effects everything around.

As prisoner's of war, Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin ) experience first hand what war does. For an audience of the 21st century it may be a shock as all the prisoner's are treated exceptionally well as long as they follow the German laws. They even eat better then their captors as packages sent to the camps are delivered without a single item missing post inspection. Maréchal and Boeldieu are about to escape before they are sent to another camp controlled by Captain von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim) who finds a kinship with Boeldieu.

In many ways there are almost three different movies going on. The war film that deals with what being a prisoner of war in WWI was like. An escape film with two major plots being shown to the audience, yet we are told that over there 18 month imprisonment both Maréchal and Boeldieu have tried to escape 11 times. And a character study of how different classes of people see war and where they fit in. For the most part this all works well to keep the film feeling fresh and moving, but by the last twenty minutes it slows down to a snails pace with a tacked on love story that could have been completely cut to keep the film going.

That being said as a historical piece or rumination on war, Grand Illusion still stand up in 2010 as a film with enough modern ideas and simple story telling that anyone who like a good war film should check it out.

4/5

The Criterion Collection

They say it's the greatest collection of films ever released in America for our visual consumption. Who are they? No idea. but that doesn't really matter. this blog is primarily going to be a place for me to wax somewhat intelligently about the films i will be watching as I make my way through the entire Criterion catalog. Slowly but surely it will happen. Some of these movies I have already seen and only one of them I disliked enough to never watch it again (The Man Who Fell To Earth), so when we get to that one I will most likely just write something short about my feelings on it from what I can remember of it (not the most fair judgment but this is my blog not yours so there). I hope if you come here and read any of this it will entertain you and inform you of movies you had never thought of trying out before. Until next time, some thing witty/interesting/funny/philosophical/etc goes here.