As classics go they don’t come any finer than this masterpiece by Jean Renoir. ‘La Grande Illusion’ is one of those films that reaffirm a film lover’s belief that cinema as an art form can ...

As classics go they don’t come any finer than this masterpiece by Jean Renoir. ‘La Grande Illusion’ is one of those films that reaffirm a film lover’s belief that cinema as an art form can be used by filmmakers to bring people together. The screenplay for the film written by Renoir and Charles Spaak is extremely deep and multi layered. Although the film is set during the WW1 era, the timing of the making and release of the film is very important. This was released when the Nazi party in Germany was becoming more and more powerful and another global war was imminent. We can’t help but think that this film was Renoir’s attempt to make people stray away from the extremism that they were getting influenced by. Although it didn’t achieve its intended objective, one can’t help but admire the artist’s intentions. If one has to summarise ‘La Grande Illusion’ in one phrase, I think the phrase to be used is ‘the power of humanism that transcends all barriers’‘. Renoir loves every single character in the film. Not just the French soldiers, even the German soldiers get treated with respect. The Germans are not stereotypical caricatures as is found in some other films of this era. The German officers treat their French prisoners with kindness. This shows Renoir understood that there were ordinary, innocent German people who were caught in the middle of the wars being instigated by the politicians in power.