La Grande Illusion : Jean Renoir

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The assembly of multi ethnic & religious people in the tumultuous time of great wars; the difficulties of verbal communications in the midst of various languages; the adversity and hardship in the desertion and escapement attempts in the life as a POW; overall, the unilateral suffering and futile purposes of wars are the concerns I have been researching for the literary and artistic documents and references of the situations in the Mesopotamian campaign [1914-1918].

I have already listed some references but I haven’t thought I will come across one of the finest artistic representations that has been expressed well in Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion [1937] where I have found all of them in a single cinema.

I am instantly enchanted by its pacifist and humanistic attitudes. Very few cinemas showed the unconventional friendship between Boëldieu [French aviator] & Rauffenstein [German aviator] like Frantz [German soldier] & Adrien [French soldier] in Frantz [2016] and the romantic affair between Marécha [French officer] & Elsa [German war widow] in the world cinema.

 

 

 

La Grande Illusion [1937]

Jean Renoir

French, France

 

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