The Elusive Corporal

Where Jean Renoir's THE GRAND ILLUSION addressed life in POW camps during WW I, this effortlessly crafted (or so it appears) Renoir tale takes place during WW II after the fall of France. The Corporal (Jean-Pierre Cassel) and two friends, Pater and Ballochet (Claude Brasseur and Claude Rich), try repeatedly to escape from their prison, but each time their efforts prove fruitless. They are separated but, in time, reunited to continue their attempts to gain freedom, although it is not long before they realize that there is no liberty and that the prison walls are not the only ones confining them. Not by accident was this Renoir's first black-and-white film in over a ...