Must-watchWorld War I · Film · 1937
La Grande Illusion
Two French airmen, an aristocrat and a mechanic, are shot down and passed from camp to camp until they land in a mountain fortress run by a German aristocrat who treats one of them as an equal.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 1 places.
Stop 1: Wintersborn fortress (Haut-Kœnigsbourg)
Key location
In a castle said to be escape-proof, Boëldieu, Maréchal and Rosenthal plan one last attempt under the eyes of the wounded commandant von Rauffenstein.
What really happened
Jean Renoir flew reconnaissance missions during the war, and built the story partly from the escapes of the French airman Armand Pinsard, who had saved his life in 1915 and later told him of breaking out of German prison camps. Roughly 500,000 French soldiers were taken prisoner during the war, and officers were held in separate camps where escape was considered a duty.
The Battle of Verdun runs through the film: Fort Douaumont fell to the Germans on 25 February 1916 and was retaken by the French on 24 October. The fortress of Wintersborn is fictional; its scenes were shot at Haut-Kœnigsbourg castle in Alsace, which Kaiser Wilhelm II had rebuilt when the region belonged to Germany. Joseph Goebbels branded the film 'Cinematic Public Enemy No. 1'.
Where to watch
Checking streaming services…
Full details
- Original title
- La Grande Illusion
- Directed by
- Jean Renoir
- Countries
- France
- Languages
- French, German, English
- Released
- 1937
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Western Europe
- Themes
- Prisoners of war
