In the year of the Lugou Bridge incident, la grand illusion was still writing about World War I, but it was not out of date. Many people know Churchill's words: "This is only twenty years of armistice." Yes, after twenty years, World War II should come.
War movies without the sound of guns and guns seem to be calm and violent, so where do you go to find the meaning of the images? Just start with the weird. The Germans were so uncannily polite to their French officers that they thought they were meet-ups between the different troops of a country before seeing the synopsis of the film.
Until the hilarious performance of the chunky officer, it turned out to be trying to enrich the narrative with comedy, which is a common tactic of outstanding war movies, but we know that renoir has already done so in 1937.
The friendship between Boeldieu and Rauffenstein and the love between Maréchal and Elsa make it clear that there is no absolute right or wrong in war, only "responsibility is responsibility". aka the old Chinese idiom "each for its own master" unless you don't get involved with it, but is that possible?
Unlike the ideological violence instilled by the full metal jacket (because the Vietnam War couldn't arouse the fighting spirit of American soldiers), all the soldiers and officers of la grand illusion are waiting for the end of the war, so they are just in their positions and seek their jobs That's it. Just do the usual things that professional soldiers do, and let it do the rest. History will give the answer.
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