“Red Cliff” - John Woo (2008)

Red Cliff (Chi Bi, 2008), directed by John Woo, is a historical drama based on events that took place in China during the early 3rd century CE, as the Han Dynasty was dissolving. Specifically, it concerns the famous Battle of Red Cliffs, which was a decisive event during this time that led to the succeeding period of the Three Kingdoms. The historical record of these events is recounted in the famous Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms. However, to understand the narrative importance of the movie and its significance to Chinese culture, one has to turn to one of the most famous literary works in Chinese history, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a historical novel written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century that is considered to be one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. Guanzhong’s work was subsequently substantially edited by Mao Zonggang in the 1660s, and the work transmitted down to modern times contains a mixture of authentic historical information, the viewpoints of various original storytellers and copyists down the years, Luo’s viewpoint at the time of the Ming Dynasty, and Mao’s viewpoint at the time of the Qing Dynasty.

The resulting novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, covers a period from about 169 CE to about 280 CE, a period during which there was an extraordinary number of complicated battles, political struggles, and tumultuous shifts in power. Because of all of these events, the period occupies a significant position in the Chinese cultural imagination, including appearances today in comics and video games. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms as it stands today in English is over 1100 pages of battles, shaky alliances, double-crosses, assassinations, and counter-coups. Many educated Chinese are familiar with the entire story, but Westerners will be confused by the complicated machinations of the story. The Battle of Red Cliffs, which took place in 209 CE, is one key event during this period. It involves several important figures that play prominent roles in the larger Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and the backgrounds of these figures are likely to be much more familiar to Chinese audiences than to Western audiences.

When the Chinese contemplate the period of The Three Kingdoms and the Battle of Red Cliffs, then, they are not only concerned about what actually happened, but also the mythology that has evolved over the years surrounding those events. Thus the period stands in much the same way that the Trojan War would stand in Western culture. In the Chinese case the mythology tends to view things from a preferential Northern Chinese perspective, casting southern Chinese and those who may have weakened that hegemony in something of a disparaging light. Director John Woo’s film production follows the main narrative of the novel, but he admittedly attempted more of a balanced perspective by drawing information from the historical Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, too.

John Woo established his fame with a string of brutal action-packed Hong Kong gangster films, including A Better Tomorrow (I & II), Bullet in the Head (my personal Woo favorite), Hardboiled, after which he shifted to Hollywood, where he made Face/Off and other somewhat tamer thrillers. Red Cliff involved a return to a Chinese setting, this time mainland China, and it is said to have had the most expensive budget in Chinese film history. Production was undoubtedly complicated, involving some 100,000 extras and the participation of the Chinese army, plus distractions like the departure during filming of principal actor, Chow-Yun Fat. Just to tell the complicated story of the Battle of Red Cliffs, Woo made a pair of two-hour films that were released as Part I and Part II of the story. But for his version of the story that has been released to Western audiences (i.e. with English subtitles) the two separate installments of the original film were condensed and combined into a single two-and-a-half hour film. It is this combined and shortened version that I am reviewing here.

With all these complicating backstory issues, there is till an interesting experience awaiting even the uninitiated viewer of this film. Although the novel features a large number of important figures in the events depicted, there are four primary characters that are the focus of the film:

• Cao Cao is the Chancellor, or Prime Minister, for the Eastern Han Dynasty in the north. He has recently defeated all the warlords in the north, ostensibly in his role to help the Eastern Han Emperor, and was now seeking to reunify the empire by conquering the southern lands. But his foes feel that he is preparing to usurp the throne and take over for himself. One foe that Cao Cao has already defeated several times on the battlefield, but who has not yet completely succumbed, is the warlord Liu Bei. Cao Cao was famed for being a highly cultured personage and an accomplished poet.
• Liu Bei is a warlord who is loyal to the Han Dynasty and is depicted in the novel as a heroic figure. At the time of the opening of the film, though, his depleted forces are fleeing Cao Cao’s much more powerful army that is attempting to finish them off.
• Zhuge Liang is Liu Bei’s chief advisor and depicted as a brilliant strategist. He is viewed as one of the great Chinese heroes and is credited with coming up with several innovations, including the landmine and the repeating crossbow (examples of which are shown in the film). He is also depicted as having knowledge of astrology, qigong, and an esoteric understanding of the Tao Te Ching.
• Zhou Yu is the Grand Viceroy for the Eastern Wu King, Sun Quan. Besides being an ingenious military strategist, Zhou Yu was also a cultured person, with skills in verse and music. Zhou Yu’s sister, Sun Shangxiang, plays an important role in the story, too.

At the outset of the film, Zhuge Liang goes south to the Eastern Wu court in order to propose and form an alliance with Liu Bei’s forces in opposition to Cao Cao, whose army is headed in their direction along the Yangtze River, both via land and water. The climactic battle between these allied forces and those of Cao Cao will take place at Zhou Yu’s stronghold at Red Cliff. The narrative structure of Red Cliff is then built around five key “battles” or struggles, each successive ministory consuming more screen time than the preceding one.

1. Cao Cao’s attack on Liu Bei. Cao Cao had apparently been battling and chasing Liu Bei’s forces for some time. Liu Bei was shepherding some civilians from Xinye that had been under his rule when he came under attack from Cao Cao’s forces. Liu Bei’s refuses advice to withdraw and instead risks further losses to his depleted forces in order to protect the fleeing civilians, thus showing his sense of loyalty and duty to higher principles. The fighting shown here is hand-to-hand and bloody, with various acts of heroism on the part of Liu Bei’s forces. Narrative Outcome: Liu Bei is established as an honorable, loyal and compassionate warrior.
2. The first Southland Attack on Cao Cao. Zhuge Liang goes on ahead to the Southland (Eastern Wu) and convinces Suns Quan and his chief advisor, Zhou Yu, to join forces with Liu Bei. But Cao Cao is said to have an army of 800,000 men, while the allied Southland forces amount to about 30,000. After Liu Bei arrives and Cao Cao’s forces set up quarters on the Yangtze river opposite Red Cliff, they launch a surprise attack employing the “tortoise shell strategy" devised by Zhuge Liang. Again there are lengthy scenes of brutal, hand-to-hand combat, with arms being chopped off and blood spurting everywhere. The results is a stunning, surprise (but not definitive) victory over Cao Cao’s forces. Narrative Outcome: Zhuge Liang is established as an ingenious military strategist.
3. The Typhoid Battle. Some of Cao Cao’s troops begin to fall ill and die from typhoid fever. Rather than burn the dead bodies, Cao Cao order them to be put on canoes and sent across the Yangtze to the Red Cliff (Southland) side of the river. Upon arrival of the floating canoes, some compassionate Southland soldiers begin unloading the bodies, and they too fall ill spreading the contagion to the Southland army. This germ-warfare tactic of Cao Cao has devastating consequences to the already sparse forces of Liu Bei. Narrative Outcome: Cao Cao is shown to be unscrupulous and to be willing to employ any tactic in order to win.
4. The 100,000 Arrows Battle. The Southland forces are running out of arrows, so Zhuge Liang devises an ingenious plan to “borrow” 100,000 arrows from Cao Cao (the intention is return them by shooting them back at Cao Cao’s forces in battle). Using his semi-occult powers, Zhuge Liang predicts a fog is coming, and prepares boats made of straw to approach the Cao Cao side of the river under the cover of the fog. Cao Cao’s forces fire an enormous barrage of arrows which become stuck in the straw of Zhuge Liang’s decoy boats. The boats then return to the Southland side of the Yangtze river without the lost of a single life, and 100,000 arrows are recovered for later use. Narrative Outcome: Zhuge Liang reputation for military genius and trickery is further enhanced.
5. The Fire Battle. Cao Cao intends to take advantage of a prevailing wind in the direction of Red Cliff to set fire to the Southland docks which will then overwhelm the Red Cliff side with fire. However, Zhuge Liang’s esoteric skills enable him to predict a crucial change in the wind direction, which will favor his side. Then with the help of some daring spying and delaying operations on the part of Zhou Yu’s wife and sister, more brilliant tactics from Zhuge Liang, and some heroic battling from Zhou Yu, the Southland forces rout Cao Cao’s forces decisively. Cao Cao is captured, but is set free and told to return to his homeland. Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu bid farewell and mutually agree that war has only destructive consequences. Narrative Outcome: the brilliant and civilized underdogs, Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang, are victorious, and the threat of Cao Cao is overcome.

With a number of antiwar verbal statements sprinkled across the film, Red Cliff has pretensions of being an antiwar film. Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu are shown at the end to be good friends and dedicated to peaceful ways, which is a major departure from the original novel: in Romance of the Three Kingdom Zhou Yu is jealous of Zhuge Liang and tries several times to have him assassinated.

But such antiwar sentiments embedded in Woo’s altered narrative are dramatically undercut by the extensive battle scenes involving utterly unrealistic Hong Kong Wuxia wire-work (aka "wire fu") action cinematography. This may appeal to the video-game audience, but it is essentially a celebration of fantastical violence for the vicarious thrill-seekers. It is also difficult to follow, at least for me, the ebb and flow of the fortunes of the battles, given the complexity of the tactical movements and the number of semi-important characters who are being followed. I consider this confusion to be a weakness of the film, but it could be argued by some that such confusion is an effective presentation of the “fog of war” and represents an intended effect. I doubt it. It is true that the great Hungarian antiwar film, The Red and the White (Csillagosok, Katonák, 1967) by Miklós Jancsó delivers its antiwar message by presenting a relentlessly confusing and dizzying series of skirmishes that renders war meaningless. But those skirmishes are dismayingly real and horrific – they are not thrilling and not meant to be. In Red Cliff, though, most of the battle scenes, bloody as they are, are arranged to show the inhuman swordsmanship skills of people like Zhou Yu, and this makes a mockery of any antiwar message intentions.

Ultimately these bloody battle scenes go on much too long. Despite the effort of cutting the four-hour film down to two-and-a-half hours, the film is still too long, because of the repetitive fight scenes. It probably would have been better for Woo to cut down these fight scenes and preserve other scenes that are known to have been cut, such as the tiger-hunt sequence.

But despite the outlandishness and unreality of the fight-sequence production values, there are some evident virtues in Red Cliff. Takeshi Kaneshiro gives a compelling performance as the crafty Zhuge Liang. Fengyi Zhang makes the character of Cao Cao richer and more complex than one might have expected, given the usual villainous depiction of that character. But most memorable of all are the spectacular crane shots. These include the overviews of Red Cliff, Cao Cao’s naval flotilla on the Yangtze, the tortoise-shell tactic battle (Act 2, “The First Southland Attack on Cao Cao”), and the great fire battle. But there is one breathtaking tracking shot among these that is worth the price of admission all on its own: Zhuge Liang releases a carrier pigeon, and it is tracked all the way as it crosses the river and flies over Cao Cao’s fleet on the way to spy Sun Shangxiang.

In the end we have to say that the epic scale of Red Cliff is at times riveting, but the overblown wire-fu sword-slashing diminishes the experience.
★★★

“The Cove” - Louie Psihoyos (2009)

The Cove is a hard-hitting documentary film about the capture and killing of dolphins in Japan. The particular focus is a “killing” cove near the small coastal town of Taiji, where thousands or dolphins are slaughtered every year.

The “star” of the film is Richard O’Barry, who originally trained the dolphins for the Flipper TV series some forty-five years ago. He began to regret the way dolphins were treated by humans, though, and for the past thirty-five years has been carrying on an individual crusade for the welfare of dolphins. Throughout the film, this single-minded campaigner is cast as the eloquent spokesman for all those who believe that the slaughter of dolphins is unconscionable.

The film narrative builds its case against dolphin capture in the following rough segments:

1. It first identifies Taiji, Japan, as the rather sinister home of a secretive industry that is out to kill dolphins on a massive scale. Since there has been public outcry against the brutal slaughter of dolphins, they don’t want reporters or photographers to come there and report on what goes on. The general process is known, however. Fishing boats line up in the water near a pod of dolphins and antagonize their sensitive acoustic sensor organs by extending steel poles into the water and pounding on them with hammers to make irritating noises. They then herd the agitated dolphins into the narrow cove, seal it off with nets, and then begin to capture and slaughter them. Captured bottle-nose dolphins can be sold live to public aquaria and water parks around the world for up to $150,000. Dolphins of other species are slaughtered for their meat.
2. The high-level intelligence and consciousness of cetaceans, in general, and dolphins, in particular is discussed, with interviews of those who have had close, friendly interactions with dolphins in the water.
3. The film crew is shown attempting a secret nighttime mission to sneak into the killing cove and find out what happens. The whole thing is presented as a military-style “special ops” mission, as if it were undertaken by a SWAT team against brutal enemy forces. The mission is interrupted and aborted, however, by Japanese security personnel who spot the interlopers.
4. There is a presentation about the degree to which dolphin meat is contaminated with heavy metals, particularly mercury. Because dolphins are high up on the food chain, mercury pollutants in the ocean accumulate as they are passed up the food chain. Dolphins often have more than ten times the “safe” level of mercury content (note: there is no real safe level of mercury ingestion, this specified levels are essentially rough guesses).
5. A second “special ops” mission is conducted to plant hidden surveillance cameras in the hills around the killing cove. This is shown with live nighttime camera footage, and the soundtrack features lots of “roger that” and “copy that” communication among the commandoes. With the secret camera in place, they are able to get footage of the bloody dolphin slaughter that the Taiji industrial people want to keep from the public.
6. The final section of the film includes more discussion concerning the stubbornness of the Japanese government and the insidious way they have manipulated the International Waling Commission by padding the membership with “bought” proxies. It concludes with a visual reminder of O’Barry's heroic campaign.

The Cove is a moving and skillfully made film directed by Louie Psihoyos about the callous way that innocent sea mammals are treated by the human seafood industry, and it is worth seeing by everyone. Anyone who sees the film, though, should probably contemplate some larger issues that are implicit in the film.

The Japanese fishermen feel that Western concern for the killing of cetaceans is simply a cultural prejudice. “You eat cows, and we eat whales,” they say, and that is certainly correct. In The Cove, there is a strenuous effort made by the producers to emphasize that dolphins are so self-aware – they are “almost” human. They are almost like us, so it is inhuman for us to confine them in aquaria and kill them. But it is pure hypocrisy for us to claim that we are more human, when we kill and eat other sentient beings. Anyone who has looked into a dog’s eyes can see the returned look of a conscious being. Why should we be so thoughtlessly killing and eating obviously conscious animals, such as cows, sheep, and pigs? I urge all readers to view the video Meet Your Meat – or try here, in order to see the way our meat industry slaughters animals.

The Cove goes on to make the argument that the dolphins are slaughtered in a cruel fashion and shows pictures of how the dolphins throats are slit by the Japanese fishermen. The Japanese government has, however, introduced procedures to make the killing of dolphins more painless. But just how “humane” is it to kill innocent animals in a relatively painless way? Should we feel satisfied with painless killing?

The Cove makes the further argument that the Japanese real material concern is that existing cetaceans are competing with their fishermen for the harvesting of fish – the Japanese want to reduce these competitors from the waters, so that they can catch and eat more fish. It is increasingly clear, though, that the current worldwide human consumption of fish is unsustainable, irrespective of how much the cetaceans eat.

In fact in the interests of our physical health, our global survivability, and our ethical well-being, it would be best if we reconsider and renounce the entire enterprise of killing animals of any kind. Maybe if you see this film, you will be one step closer to that beautiful decision.
★★★½ 

“Afghan Star” - Havana Marking (2009)

The freedom to express oneself is the most basic social right, and it is the lynchpin that holds an effective society together. So it is natural that oppressive, authoritarian groups always seek to remove that right from the people. British director-producer Havana Marking’s documentary, Afghan Star is ostensibly about a “Pop Idol” TV talent show in Afghanistan, but what makes the film interesting is its theme about self-expression. In Afghanistan, as in Iran today, there is a significant social mass that wishes to stifle all forms of independent expression. As Marking’s film demonstrates, this ignorant and stubborn mass, mostly men, comprises more than just the Taliban.

The story of the film follows the fortunes of four singers who seek the top prize in the nation-wide pop-singing context, named “Afghan Star”. Of the 2000 initial contests, only three of them are women, but two of these women are among the four principal contestants followed, and they all make it to be among the final seven. All these people want to do is sing songs, and that simple desire seems to have electrified the whole country, because by the time of the final show, 11 million people (one-third of the population) are watching it on TV, despite the great poverty of the nation (world’s fifth poorest nation).

The way contestants are selected for progression to the next stage is by simple vote via an SMS message from a mobile phone. This simple form of democracy, which places men and women, rich and poor, on an equal footing, is something that the conservative elements find alarming. The TV station, Tolo TV, is threatened by backward, conservative Islamic Ulema, and the entire wireless cell-phone network is threatened with sabotage by the Taliban.

Given Afghanistan’s varied ethnic makeup, it is natural that the separate ethnic groups will support contestants from their own group. So the four people followed in the film are various groups and regions:

• Rafi, with his pop-star mannerisms, is from Mazar-e-Sharif in the north and seems to be Tajik
• Hameed is a classically-trained musician from the Hazara ethnic communty, which is a Persian Shi'ite group from central Afghanistan that has frequently suffered at the hands of its more populous neighboring communities. The message in his songs is national inclusiveness and unity.
• Setara Hussainzada is from Herat and probably also Tajik. Traditional Afghani music has always been influenced by Hindustani music, and her music reflects this flavor.
• Lima is Pashtun and from Kandahar, an extremely conservative area. She secretly studies music with a teacher who has to sneak over to her house in fear of his life. Her choice of songs and her singing style is more conservative and restrained than that of Setara.

Much of the film follows the mounting excitement generated by the Afghan Star TV show, which in 2008 was only in its third season. The idea of singing on TV may seem natural to outside audiences, but this was a radical event in Afghanistan and generated national pride, enthusiasm, and outrage, depending on the outlooks of the people watching. Since more than 60% of the Afghanistan population is under the age of 21, the bulk of the country was innocently enthusiastic. These people had been living for years under the Taliban-imposed Islamic “Dark Ages”, and their only knowledge of the country’s past proud music tradition, which did include women singers, would only have been gained from stories told to them.

The Tolo TV station personnel are all very young men, who seem to be learning how to make TV shows on the job. Some of them are shown to be learning TV production from books acquired from overseas. (Don’t laugh, I graduated from a well-known film school and learned more useful information from those kinds of books than I did from my instructors.)

The narrative flow of Afghan Star is interesting, because the director makes effective use of stark intertitles to emphasize important points and effectively punctuate the drama. The camera work is pretty good, considering that the filming conditions must have been both difficult and very dangerous. One notable aspect of the film is the presentation of women without head-covering. Although women probably don’t normally wear head-covering in their homes, the presentation of such on a film would normally not be allowed in Iran, and must have been made the Islamic oppressors in Afghanistan quite unhappy.

But something even more notable happened during the filming of Afghan Star, and it essentially altered the original storyline that must have been in the minds of the producers. When the finalists numbered only seven, Setara was eliminated from the group and thus was given the opportunity to present her final number to the camera before bowing out. In a glorious moment of human self-expression and passion, she lowers her headdress and begins not only singing, but also moving slightly to a few modest dance steps. This simple, and by-our-standards modest, action generates a national outcry for her head. When she wants to return to her home in Herat, her family is even unhappy for her to come.

We don’t know if any men in Afghanistan stood up to defend Setara’s modest and entirely innocent singing, but the film doesn’t record any. Instead, there are a number of swinish statements made by men saying that she is a whore and that she should be killed: she is branded as “un-Islamic”.

Director Marking documents this gripping episode, but then drops the thread and continues with the talent-show countdown. Eventually Rafi is chosen as the winner. This is ironic, because he probably won (over Hameed) on the basis of his pretty-boy appearance than on his singing voice. He looks like a cross between Tom Cruise and soccer-star Christiano Ronaldo, and he may have garnered a significant number of votes from women. This is ironic, because probably most of the women who voted for him were unaware that Rafi expressed the same kind of repulsive, pig-headed criticism of Setara that seeks to deny all women the simple right to sing and dance in public.

At the end of the film, it is reported that both Lima and Setara have received death threats and need protection. Setara, however, has defiantly continued her quest and has made a recording. The actual Afghan Star TV producer and host, Daoud Sediqi, has fled the country and is seeking asylum in the US. Afghanistan, like Iran, has a long way to go before its people can enjoy the basic rights of self-expression.

Though the film is interesting and worthwhile, Marking missed an opportunity when she edited the it. She should have re-oriented the storyline and focused the conclusion more explicitly on the real star. Setara, whose name actually does mean “star”, was the real "Afghan Star" of this film.
★★★½ 

Jean Renoir

About Jean Renoir:

• The Tour of the Fortress in Renoir’s La Grande Illusion – a Scene Analysis

Films of Jean Renoir:

• Le Crime de Monsieur Lange - Jean Renoir (1936)
• La Grande Illusion - Jean Renoir (1937)
• La Bête Humaine - Jean Renoir (1938)
• The Rules of the Game (La Règle du Jeu) - Jean Renoir (1939)
• The Southerner - Jean Renoir (1945)
• The River - Jean Renoir (1951)

“La Grande Illusion” - Jean Renoir (1937)

Jean Renoir’s most popular and well-known work, La Grande Illusion (Grand Illusion, 1937), is considered one of the all-time great anti-war films, but there is almost no combat portrayed. Instead, the action, set mostly in World War I German prisoner-of-war camps, concerns the escape efforts of several French officers confined in the camps. Made just before the onset of World War II, the film stands more as a testament to the brotherhood of mankind, than it does as an explicit depiction of the futility of war. But with the imminent threat of fascism sweeping across Europe at the time, the film’s ultimately humanistic message concentrates on the positive alternatives and avoids merely dwelling on the horrors of violence and suffering.

The film was an immediate critical success, unusual for a Renoir film, although it was soon banned by the invading German army, which attempted to destroy all prints. The period during the late 1930s was when Renoir, who was an experienced filmmaker in his early 40s, emerged as one of the world’s greatest filmmakers. Besides La Grande Illusion (1937), other great works during this period include Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (The Crime of Monsieur Lange, 1936), La Bête Humaine (The Human Beast, 1938), and La Règle du Jeu, (The Rules of the Game, 1939). These films tend to feature multi-participant narratives that not only allow the viewer to sympathize with the individual characters but also see the larger scheme of things and the social issues that concern them. This vision, this view of humanity at large, is what elevates Renoir’s films to the level of great artistic statements. To reach high levels of artistry, Renoir was always looking to extend his technical mastery of film and employ new techniques. He was one of the early innovators in the use of sound techniques and in the use of extensive camera movements that employed deeper-focus cinematography. For a more detailed analysis of how Renoir employed these techniques in a particular sequence in this film, see “The Tour of the Fortress in Renoir’s La Grande Illusion – a Scene Analysis”, which takes place in the third "act" (second of three mini-narratives discussed below)

Renoir also usually obtained good performances from his principal actors in these films. Notable in this film are the following players:

• Jean Gabin plays Lieutenant Marechal. Gabin was a rapidly rising film star in France, who would also appear in Julien Duvivier’s Pépé le Moko (1937), Marcel Carne’s Le Quai des Brumes (1938) and Le Jour Se Leve (1939), and Renoir’s La Bête Humaine.
• Erich von Stroheim gives a mesmerizing performance in the role of Captain von Rauffenstein. Von Stroheim was a famous director in the silent era, and his work had been an inspiration to the youthful Renoir during his formative stages.
• Marcel Dalio, who plays the key role of a Jewish soldier in this film, Lieutenant Rosenthal, also played a major role in La Règle du Jeu. The Jewish Dalio’s real, original name was Israel Moshe Blauschild, and both his parents died in Nazi concentration camps. He, himself, just managed to escape the invading Nazis in 1940.
• Julien Carette plays the stage actor Cartier. This role was something of an homage to Charlie Chaplin, the viewing of whose films enthralled the young Renoir and inspired him to take up filmmaking.
• Pierre Fresnay plays the urbane Captain de Boeldieu. He had earlier appeared in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934).
• Dita Parlo, a popular German actress, plays the German widow Elsa.

The story of the film comprises a narrative prologue, followed by three somewhat separate mini-narratives that have been strung together.

Act 1: Introduction. Lieutenant Marechal is assigned to accompany Captain de Boeldieu on an aircraft reconnaissance mission to overfly German territory. They are shot down by German flying ace, Captain von Rauffenstein and taken prisoner. When von Rauffenstein discovers they are both officers, he asks for them to brought before them, and he soon discovers that de Boeldieu is a wealthy and cultured patrician, like himself, and that they even have common acquaintances. This introduces one of the film’s thematic strands: the commonality that upper-class Europeans have that transcends national borders. Von Rauffenstein feels an instinctive affinity with de Boeldieu, because they share a set of values and a common code of behaviour. But he feels nothing of the sort for Marechal.

Act 2: Prisoner-of-War Camp N17, Hallbach. At this officers’ camp, de Boeldieu and Marechal join a rowdy group of French prisoners. Among the prisoners is a former music hall stage actor, Cartier, who is constantly mugging and showing off before the others. Another inmate is Lieutenant Rosenthal, a wealthy Jewish businessman who shares with his fellow prisoners the abundant food parcels that are sent to him by his family. All of them besides de Boeldieu are middle or lower class, and they feel a feel a sense of bonding with each other that they don’t share with de Boeldieu. This displays a second theme: the comradery shared by all kinds of people with a common nationality, in this case French. During this act, the high-spirited group of French prisoners engage in an arduous effort to dig an escape tunnel out of the prison camp. Just as they are about to make their escape, though, they are all transferred to other prison camps. Upon their departure from the camp, they are unable to inform the incoming British prisoners of the existence of the tunnel due to the language barrier separating them.

Act 3: Prisoner-of-War Camp N14, Wintersborn. The third act begins after an intervening montage sequence indicating that some time has elapsed and that the prisoners have been scattered and shifted across a number of different prison camps. Finally, de Boeldieu and Marechal find themselves transferred to the Wintersborn camp, which is located in an old medieval fortress. There they find that the commander of the prison camp to be von Rauffenstein, who in the intervening years has evidently suffered severe spinal injuries and burns so that he is unfit for active combat and has been assigned to run the remote prison. The injuries, in fact, have now forced von Rauffenstein's behaviour and manner to be even more exaggeratedly stiff than ever.

Von Rauffenstein examines the dossiers of de Boeldieu and Marechal and observes that they have both attempted numerous escapes from their previous prison camps. He informs them that escape from this one will be impossible and, in his stiff manner, cordially gives them a tour of the old fortress. This is an interesting sequence displaying Renoir’s artful moving-composition cinematic techniques and is discussed in detail in “The Tour of the Fortress in Renoir’s La Grande Illusion – a Scene Analysis”.

Marechal and de Boeldieu learn that their old friend Rosenthal is also imprisoned here, and they join up again and start plotting how they might escape from this prison. It will require a lengthy handmade rope and some sort of decoying action that will distract the guards. De Boeldieu, living up to his sense of honor, decides that he must serve as the decoy and sacrifice himself in order for Marechal and Rosenthal to escape. In the event, de Boeldieu is shot and killed by the reluctant, but equally honor-bound von Rauffenstein, but Marechal and Rosenthal manage to get away via the rope.

Act 4: Escape. In the final act, Marechal and Rosenthal set out on the road seeking to escape Germany. Rosenthal has a badly injured foot, though, and they have no choice but to seek shelter in a rural farmhouse that is tended by a widowed German lady, Elsa, who is looking after her young daughter. Elsa’s husband and all her brothers had already died in the war, but she sympathizes with the human plight of the two French escapees and takes them in. While Rosenthal recuperates, the two settle down for awhile, helping the young widow with the farm work. Though Marechal and Elsa eventually fall in love, Rosenthal and Marechal finally realize they have to leave, and they set out again on foot. They finally find the Swiss border and make it across before a pursuing German attachment can get them.

The narrative focalization of La Grande Illusion follows Marechal pretty much all the way through the film, and along the way it emphasizes key relationships with the following three people:

• von Rauffenstein and de Boeldieu. The working-class Marechal cannot easily relate to the two aristocrats, and the contrast between their strict codes of honor and his own down-to-earth humanism is constantly emphasized. Von Rauffenstein and de Boeldieu live by an outmoded set of rules that have often had destructive and inhuman consequences. De Boeldieu, in fact, acknowledges that the world will soon do without people of his type, and he effectively chooses to bow out by sacrificing himself for his two “humanist” comrades.
• Rosenthal. Marechal sometimes displays thoughtless antisemitic prejudices, but his instinct to take all people as human beings eventually wins out. This, of course, contrasts with the antisemitism that was having such terrible consequences in Germany at the time.
• Elsa. Marechal overcomes whatever feelings he may have against the German enemy and falls in love with her. Again, the universality of humanism triumphs over local prejudices.

Renoir’s presentation of the virtues of liberal humanism – that “man is the measure of all things” – entails an external, universal, and “objective” narrative view of the action. The camera’s point of view is not personally involved and subjective, but is seen from the perspective of a sympathetic, but somewhat detached, “silent witness”. This is achieved by Renoir’s preference for medium and long shots involving multiple characters, often in movement. The resulting point of view is thus more global and all-encompassing. His approach contrasts with the existentialist mise-en-scène of his contemporary and rival, Marcel Carné, who was the champion of “poetic realism”. Carné’s work was atmospheric, emotional, and often fatalistic concerning the romantic longings of his individual protagonists, while Renoir’s work was more reflective about the larger scheme of the human enterprise.

The work of both Carné and Renoir induce in the viewer a feeling of melancholy. Carné’s melancholy concerns the eternal loneliness of the individual and the hopelessness of romantic fulfilment. Renoir’s melancholy is less personal and more reflective on universal truths affecting humanity. Here in La Grande Illusion, there is an implicit faith underlying the film that ultimately the universal commonality of humanity will overcome the depredations of nationalism, racism, and outmoded social class distinctions. Yet Renoir's view is not completely optimistic. World War I brought about the senseless deaths of 15 million people. France suffered 1.3 million battlefield deaths, and Germany suffered 1.7 million deaths on the battlefield. These people died because of stubborn adherence to the prejudices and traditions that humanism is supposed to overcome someday. At the end of the La Grande Illusion, it is unclear in the narrative whether or not the now-free Marechal and Rosenthal will return to France and rejoin the armed struggle. They have passed over the artificial line of the Swiss border, but they may not have passed beyond the artificial barriers in their minds concerning the evils of war, itself. When we viewers watch the film today, knowing the horrors that awaited Europe in World War II, we may be even more circumspect than Renoir was in 1937.
★★★★