Grand Illusion
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Grand Illusion
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In 1916 Captain de Boëldieu’s plane, piloted by Lieutenant Maréchal, is shot down during a reconnaissance flight by Captain von Rauffenstein of the German army. Von Rauffenstein greets the two French officers in the German officers’ mess and invites them to dine at their table. The meal is interrupted by a German soldier who takes charge of the two prisoners, who are sent to an officers’ prison at Hallbach. At Hallbach, Maréchal and Boëldieu find themselves in a barrack-room with other French officers from a variety of social strata, including a vaudeville actor (Cartier), a provincial school teacher, an engineer, and a wealthy Jewish couturier from Paris (Rosenthal). The French officers are digging a tunnel to escape, while at the same time preparing, with the British prisoners, a variety show for Christmas. The evening of the performance, to which the German officers have been invited, the show is suddenly interrupted by Maréchal, who announces that the Douaumont fortress has been taken back from the Germans. The English and French prisoners mock their guards by singing together “La Marseillaise.” Maréchal is punished for his role by several weeks in solitary, rejoining his comrades the day before their planned escape—only to learn with them that they are all to be transferred to other camps the next day. Several months later, Maréchal and Boëldieu are incarcerated in the medieval fortress at Wintersborn, from which “no one ever escapes.” Each of them has made several attempts to escape from other prison camps. The commander of the fortress is none other than the former pilot Rauffenstein, who has been reduced to this function by serious wounds he has received in aerial combat. The two French officers are also reunited with Rosenthal, who is busily preparing another escape attempt. Rauffenstein tries to strike up a friendship with Boëldieu based on their class affinities, but Boëldieu remains faithful to his comrades and organizes a diversion to help Maréchal and Rosenthal escape. Rauffenstein is forced to shoot Boëldieu and wounds him fatally; devastated, he attends the final moments of his aristocratic counterpart. Several days later, Maréchal and Rosenthal, exhausted and famished, have a sharp dispute. They make up and finally find refuge in a German farm where Rosenthal can rest until his badly sprained ankle has recovered. They are taken in by a young widowed peasant, Elsa, who lives alone on her farm with her little daughter Lotte. On Christmas eve Maréchal becomes her lover, but has to leave soon after with Rosenthal, He promises to come back for her after the war. At the end of the film the two men cross the border into Switzerland, narrowly escaping shots from a passing German patrol. |
