A Man Escaped

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"This story is true," reads the opening statement of A Man Escaped. "I give it as it is, without embellishment." Based on the memoir by Andre Devigny, a member of the French Resistance imprisoned and sentenced to death by the Gestapo during the German occupation, Bresson (himself at one time a German POW) transforms Devigny's daring escape into an ascetic film of documentary detail. Kept in a tiny stone cell with a high window and a thick wooden door, the prisoner (renamed Fontaine in the film) makes himself intimate with his world--every surface of his room, every sound reverberating through the hall, and every detail of the prison's layout that he can absorb in brief sojourns from his cell. Bresson magnifies every detail with insistent close-ups and detailed examinations of every step of Fontaine's plan, from constructing and hiding ropes and hooks to painstakingly carving out an exit in the heavy cell door, and provides a sort of Greek chorus of fellow prisoners. This is Bresson's first film to feature a completely nonprofessional cast drilled to master precise movements and deliver lines without dramatic inflection. The effect is a drama where the slightest gesture carries the weight of a confession. Bresson's films are not for everybody, and this austere picture hardly carries the visceral punch of The Great Escape, but it's a drama of profound power, with a gripping climax that's as absorbing and tense as any high-energy action film. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews:

A Man Escaped.......2007-06-25

Bresson's spare but breathless film mesmerizes with the ring of truth. Based on Andre Devigny's own harrowing story, the prisoner's dogged efforts serve as powerful testament to man's ingenuity and will to survive. Leterrier is excellent as Fontaine (based on Devigny). Often unbearably suspenseful, this title offers large rewards in a small, understated package. Don't let it escape.

"I kept on working. It stopped me from thinking. I had to open this door.".......2007-01-30

"On my right, no one. An empty cell. On my left, a neighbor who didn't answer my tapping." So the French prisoner tells us in this film as we look at him (in black & white) in a concrete cell. We rarely see the few German guards in this film and we hear almost nothing from them...or from anyone besides our prisoner and a few of his fellow inmates (when they are throwing out trash together or washing up). 80% of the dialogue in this film is actually a first person monologue, actually (which hardly conveys the tension others characterize this film as having more than its fair share of).

From a spoon he holds back from soup our prisoner tells us, "I made a kind of chisel." "I couldn't work fast, because of the noise I made and the constant fear of being caught. I kept having to sweep under the door with a piece of straw from my broom." "I kept on working. It stopped me from thinking. I had to open this door. I had no other plans." "Three boards would give me room enough." He tells us of he neighbor's silence scaring him then. "I plugged up the holes with paper I'd soiled on the floor." "After three weeks, working as quietly as possible, I was able to separate, lengthwise, three boards. But they were still in the frame, fastened by joints which bent my spoon. To dislodge them from the frame I needed another spoon. Only then could I force them hard enough." Then we see two spoons employed after he swipes another during an intervening scene. "I busted the frame, but more than I'd intended. I was able to put the piece back in place." "After one month's work my door was open." (Perhaps half of the speech of this film's 100 minutes passes by in this manner.) Then, in this instance, we see him slide a panel in the door and lift it out of line and put his face up to the opening.

During all of the above explanation, by the way, the director gives us close-ups of what is actually happening and what this prisoner is actually doing at the moment. The dialogue, thus, you could say, is rather redundant throughout most of this film. We don't see much besides the prisoner's cell, a room with sinks, a courtyard and sundry hallways. Mind you, the film does build, to some extent, to its denouement, but it ends rather abruptly. All in all, it was worth watching, in my opinion, but then again, It didn't cost me anything to view "A Man Escaped." By all means buy this film if such is your inclination, but I believe you'll be more satisfied having simply rented it (if possible). Cheers

Tense WWII prison escape.......2006-09-02

French director Robert Bresson who also wrote the screenplay, based on the wartime memoirs of Andre Devigny, fashioned an enthralling, nervewracking recounting of an elaborate prison break during the height of WWII.

Francois Leterrier playing Lt. Fontaine is captured by the Nazis in 1943 Lyons for sabotage of a bridge. After being beaten severely by the Gestapo, he's thrown into prison to await his fate. While being incarcerated within a claustrophobic cell he conjures up a plan to escape. He begins by taking apart the door to his cell gaining him access to the corridors of the prison. He constructs ropes and hooks with the meagre contents of his tiny abode.

With his plan finally complete after many painstaking months of preparation, he is summoned for his final judgement. Given a death sentence he must act immediately, when he suddenly gets a cellmate, a young Frenchman who he must either bring along or kill.

Bresson adroitly creates an aura of solitude and severe unease with a minimum of dialogue in this underappreciated flick. He expertly conveys the desperation of Lt. Fontaine as his very existence hangs in the balance.

Bresson at his restrained best.......2006-03-06

A Man Escaped is one of those films that improves with repeat viewings. Bresson makes a strange choice in omitting the opening chapter of the memoir the film is based on which deals with the hero's curiously distant emotional response to killing a collaborator, which does throw some light on the sudden apathy and inertia that paralyses him once he is on the brink of making his much-delayed escape, but in other respects it's a perfectly contained and executed movie.

The performances are very strong (Bresson was still aiming for naturalistic performances at this time) and the Christian allegory - that we want redemption but instinctively back away from it - is not overstrained: although this time round I noticed a few more references to religion than I recalled, it's there if you want to see it but never at the cost of turning the movie into a sermon.

New Yorker's source material is not especially good, but considering how bad most 35mm prints that go round the revival circuit are, it may well be a case of making the best of what material was available to them.

A Man Escaped--so did the print.......2005-12-29

This is one of cinema's great achievements, a testament of the combination of elements (subject, visual style, photographic image, movement, sound, background music, character, montage) are perfectly blended into a unique experience. The New Yorker print, however, is the worst copy of this film (16mm, 35mm, television screenings) I have ever seen. This was a copy with a lack of contrast, extra noise on the track, looking like a dub. If only there was a decent attempt to attain anything better would have begun to do the film justice. As it is, enjoy what you're stuck with but know there's something better out there.

Burt Shapiro

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