See this film: Grand Ilusion @ the HFA

Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game (1939) took fourth place in the most recent Sight & Sound magazine critics poll of the ten best movies in the history of cinema, but some prefer the great French auteur's eloquent, funny, and tragic Grand Illusion (1937). A possible inspiration for such diverse works as The Great Escape and Hogan's Heroes, it tells the story of French soldiers in a German POW camp where matters of class, compassion, and personal honor trump patriotism. Or almost; there's a scene in which a soldier in drag sings La Marseilles that is unforgettable. It screens through August 19 in a newly restored print at the Harvard Film Archive in the Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge | Friday, August 10 @ 7 pm | $9; $7 students, seniors | 617.495.4700 or hcl.harvard.edu/hfa.