Criterion Collection 001: Grand Illusion

Grand Illusion, Jean Renoir, 1937
Goebbels labeled it "Cinematic Public Enemy No. 1." I simply call it the greatest film by the greatest filmmaker of all time. Released on the brink of World War II, Grand Illusion is a paradoxical clarion call from the Popular Front to the people of France: we must go to war out of the hope that it will be the last one. Structured as a narrative triptych, the movie implodes all essentialist notions of class, race, and nation. The titular allegory can be read multiple ways (e.g. the aristocracy is a relic of an old world and like Rauffenstein himself - shattered and broken, held together only by metal plates - ready to collapse at any moment), but I find it best symbolized in the final haunting image: of a snowy plain that erases all borders and affirms that our arbitrary social distinctions are simply illusion.

Highly Recommended