La Grande Illusion

Jean Renoir's cinematic masterpiece La Grande Illusion (1937) tells the story of two French prisoners-of-war escaping through Germany towards France during the First World War. Its themes of loyalties divided by class, racial and national identities and the conflict between patriotism and pacifism made it particularly compelling and controversial on its release in the last days of the French Popular Front. Julian Jackson's study of the film places it in the historical context of France in the late 1930s, and also addresses the film's unforgettable character studies and its unusual structure, with the narrative divided into a series of self-contained set pieces.