Jul. 02, 2005 - 1:30 pm
this is another movie that i feel like i've just heard the title mentioned over and over again. i kept putting it off and putting it off thinking that it was some sort of artsy crap from the 30s that i wouldn't really care about. it's really not very artsy though. it's directed by Jean Renoir (son of the famous impressionist painter), but is really about a few French soldiers trying to escape from POW camps in WWI. i've read that this is one of the first big prison break movies and is a classic in that genre of film.
i would detail the plot a bit more, but that's really about it. it's not too complex, although it goes on for 2 hours. i think that's part of the flaw with this film. it's fairly well done for what it is, but it's sort of the same thing again and again. the soldiers get moved from one prison camp to another and keep trying to escape. there's a bit of drama at the end where the two main guys escape and hide with a widowed German lady and her daughter. there's some romance involved and the main Frenchman, Lt. Maréchal, has trouble leaving the lady, saying that he plans to come back for her and her daughter after the war is over and that he will take them back to France with him.
it's a decent film, but it didn't have much luck drawing me into the story. i felt quite separate from it. i guess that's one thing that's generally good about some of the newer movies. you often get drawn into a character to a much greater degree. you feel like you know them. i'd attribute a lot of it to close-ups and generally improved cinematography i suppose.