Movie Description
Avoiding all the clichés of the prison movie genre, Robert Bresson achieves the impossible in A MAN ESCAPED: he presents a highly minimalist depiction of a prisoner plotting a jailbreak, and is still able to evoke incredible suspense despite the fact that the movie frequently consists of little more than a man toiling away quietly in his cell.
Neither Bresson's seemingly odd choice of a past-tense title, nor the fact that the film is based on a real WWII event in which a prisoner successfully escaped a German-run jail in occupied France, lessens the film's impact. As in many of Bresson's films, the protagonist is a possessed individual whose mission sustains him. While he may stubbornly continue planning, the viewer sees the potential hazards he may encounter and feels an incredible sense of tension each time his efforts are stalled.
Bresson inserts a spiritual element into the prisoner's behavior by emphasizing the ritualistic nature of his daily activities, and by showing how group activity and trust are required to resist the evil, personified by the Nazi captors. Gripping and sublime, A MAN ESCAPED is a cinematic masterpiece.
| Credits | | Cast: | Charles Le Clainche, Francois Leterrier |
Notes
DVD Features:
Region 1
Keep Case
Additional Release Material:
Trailers - 1. Original Theatrical Trailer
Interactive Features:
Scene Selections, The film was shot in the actual setting in which the action takes place, the Fort Monluc prison in Lyon, France.
Bresson won the Best Director prize at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival.
The film was voted Best Film of the Year by the French Film Academy.
Editorial Reviews
"...[We too] experience the prisoner's anxieties about imminent death or freedom." -- Rating: A+
Entertainment Weekly - Lawrence O'Toole (08/12/1994)
"...Bresson's fact-based French masterpiece..."
USA Today - Mike Clark (08/26/1994)
"Director Robert Bresson's fact-based French masterpiece..."
USA Today - Mike Clark (05/28/2004)
"[With] a balance of form and content as perfect as that of the Mozart mass which occasionally underscores the action."
Sight and Sound - Michael Brooke (08/01/2008)
Awards
1957CannesBest DirectorRobert Bresson
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