La Grande Illusion

Quentin Tarantino once joked that the movie "Platoon" could be summed up as "war bad."
Well, here is a war movie much more complex. A masterpiece. A movie in the Top 10 best movies of all time list.

It is the story of some French prisoners in a German POW camp during World War I. You can see how the nature of war is changing. You see how the aristocratic officers on both sides have more in common with each oher than with the common soldiers on their side. It shows how soldiers on each side have more in common with each other than with the ruling classes from their native country.

And what is the "grand illusion"? Perhaps the idea, common until that time, that war was somehow "civilized". But more than anything the "grand illusion" was the concept that World War I was "the war to end all wars." The one that would end fighting forever. An illusion indeed.

This is deeply humanist film from perhaps the most humanistic director ever, Jean Renoir. There are moments of humor, love, pathos and scenes of real beauty.
It's on Turner Classic Movies as part of their "Janus Movies Month"