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Film · France · 1937

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Grand Illusion

63Watch it awake.

Officers share a class across the wire, and the Nazis banned the film later.

The review

Renoir puts French officers in a German camp during the first war. There is an escape. The war is not a parade, which I was glad of, having sat through plenty. An aristocratic German commandant understands the aristocratic Frenchman better than either understands his own men. Class crosses the line the armies are supposed to hold. A house can watch it without turning the camp into sport.

The Nazis banned it later. That is a fact about the film, not a decoration. What stayed with me was the rank: the men in the camp are the ones their officers do not quite see. The escape matters. The ease between those two gentlemen matters more, and it is not a comfort. I kept them recognizing each other over the heads of their own men.

Journal

Keep Grand Illusion in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 63. Yours can differ.

The glance

Household is the thin one.

Is a marriage, a parent, or a child a real life here, or just a prop?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

Saving Private Ryan

75 instead of 63

Saving Private Ryan is still a war film, and it scores 75 instead of 63. What you gain is household: The errand is a mother's remaining son.

The eight

6
Industry
The officers' rank is the subject; their own men are the ones at the war.
2
Household
A camp of officers is not a marriage, a parent, or a child.
6
Piety
A shared code links the enemy gentlemen and still misses their own men.
8
Courage
The escape risks the camp, the life they would otherwise keep.
8
Republic
Each aristocrat understands his enemy counterpart better than his own men.
7
Temperance
The war is not a parade, so glory is not what the picture is selling.
8
Truth
Class crosses the battle line, the fact a patriotic story would skip.
5
Stewardship
The Nazis banned it later; the class line is what the war did not erase.

Where to watch

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Live Historic · Grand Illusion · 63IMDb

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Film · Prime Video · 2005

Pass it on

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

63Watch it awake.

The punishments are the old book. The factory is colder than the 1971 film. Read it that way.

The review

Charlie is still the child who has a family and almost nothing else, and the ticket is still a test the other children fail in public. Willy is stranger here, and the flashbacks make his oddness a wound rather than a mystery. That is a choice. It explains him. It also risks teaching that genius is a loneliness the world should indulge. The book did not ask for that much sympathy.

Watch it if the house already knows the story and can say which child is which. The gum, the television, the greed, the spoiled demanding: those four are the lesson, and they are still true. Do not come away wishing to live in the factory. Come away glad Charlie had a grandfather who would go with him and a family to bring the prize home to.

Journal

Keep Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 63. Yours can differ.

The glance

Piety is the thin one.

Can conscience actually stop someone, or is reverence only in the shot so it can be mocked?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

Frozen II

74 instead of 63

Frozen II is still a family film, and it scores 74 instead of 63. What you gain is republic: A kingdom's prosperity on someone else's river.