This superb La Grande Illusion Poster will make you rediscover one of the most famous films in French cinema. A must-have for fans!
- Paper characteristics:
- 🎨 Canvas: global standard in terms of printing and imitating a “painting canvas” look.
- By default, the poster contains a 4cm white border for framing (frame not included). If you don’t want it, please choose “without white border”.
- ✅ Size: Multiple choices available. ✅
- High UV resistance.
- Color vibrancy maximum, glare-free.
- Paper recycled, guaranteeing environmental friendliness.
- Poster packaged carefully and delivered in a protective tube for Total protection.
- FREE STANDARD DELIVERY.
⚠️ Frame not included. ⚠️
Description of this La Grande Illusion Poster
La Grande Illusion is a 1937 French war film directed by Jean Renoir, who co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Spaak. It is an adaptation of the 1909 book La Grande Illusion by British journalist Norman Angel, which argues that war is futile because of the shared economic interests of all European nations. Starring Jean Gabin, Pierre Freneuve, Erich von Stroheim, and Dita Parlo, the film deals with the class relationships that develop among a small group of French officers who are prisoners of war during World War I and plan an escape.
La Grande Chimère is considered by critics and film historians to be one of the masterpieces of French cinema and one of the greatest films ever made. Orson Welles once said that The Great Chimera was one of two films he would take with him “on the ark.”
Empire magazine ranked it number 35 on its list of “The 100 Greatest Films of World Cinema” in 2010.
During World War I, two French aviators, the aristocratic Captain de Beauldier and Lieutenant Maréchal, conduct a flight to examine the location of a fuzzy dot found in photographs from a previous aerial reconnaissance. They are shot down by German aircraft, captured, and detained by German forces. At their detention camp, the aristocratic Major von Rauffenstein sends one of his officers to determine if the aviators are officers and, if so, invite them to lunch. During the meal, von Rauffenstein and Boeldieu discover they have a mutual acquaintance, illustrating the intimacy, if not solidarity, between the upper classes that transcends national borders.
Boeldieu and Maréchal are then taken to a prisoner of war camp, where they meet a group of French prisoners and put on a Vodvillain-style performance after the Germans capture Fort Douaumont during the epic Battle of Verdun. During the performance, news arrives that the French have retaken the fort. Maréchal interrupts the performance, and the French prisoners spontaneously respond by singing the Marseillaise. Following this disruption, Maréchal is placed in solitary confinement, where he suffers cruelly from lack of human contact and hunger, while the fort changes hands again. Boeldieu and Maréchal also assist their compatriots as they dig an escape tunnel. But shortly before it is completed, they are all transferred to other camps. Maréchal, because he does not speak English, cannot report the existence of the tunnel to an arriving British prisoner.
Boeldieu and Maréchal are moved from camp to camp and eventually end up at Wintersborn, a mountain fortress prison run by Rauffenstein, who was very seriously wounded in combat and left the front.
At Wintersborn, the two men meet a fellow prisoner, Rosenthal, a wealthy French Jew who generously shares the food parcels he receives. Boeldieu has an idea after carefully observing the German guards’ reaction to an emergency. He offers to distract the guards for the few minutes it takes for Maréchal and Rosenthal to escape. After a disturbance among the prisoners, the guards gather them in the fortress courtyard, where they discover that Boeldieu has disappeared. He appears at the top of the fortress, attracting the attention of the German guards, who give chase. Marshal and Rosenthal thus find the opportunity to jump out of a window with a rope and escape.
Rauffenstein forbids the guards from shooting Boeldieu and demands that he surrender. Boeldieu refuses to surrender, and Rauffenstein shoots at his legs, but ultimately hits him in the stomach. In his final moments, Boeldieu laments that their usefulness to society (as aristocrats) is ending with this war. He pities Rauffenstein, who will have to find a new purpose in the emerging social order.
Marshal and Rosenthal walk through the German countryside, trying to reach nearby Switzerland. Rosenthal wounds his leg, slowing Marshal. They take refuge in the medieval farmhouse of a German woman, Elsa, who lost her husband at Verdun, along with her three brothers, in battles ironically described as “our greatest victories.” She hides them and does not betray them when she encounters a German army patrol. Maréchal begins to fall in love with her, and she responds, but the two eventually part out of a sense of duty to the war effort after Rosenthal recovers from his wound. Maréchal declares his intention to return to Elsa and his daughter Lotte after the war.
A German patrol approaches the two fugitives as they cross a snowy valley. The soldiers fire a few shots, but the patrol leader orders them to stop, claiming they have crossed into Switzerland. Finally, we see them in the distance, in the deep snow, walking toward an uncertain future.