Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut

The stoically minimized material, a man's precisely prepared, calculated, and then executed escape from a Nazi-prison, effectively builds up an astonishingly intense tension. (For that matter, only similar film I can recall is Cluzot's Wages of Fear, made a couple of years earlier.) In this very quiet A Man Escaped, only music is sporadically inserted Mozart, but it might have worked better without any music.

Bresson audaciously began realism and stood alone in pre-New-Wave France, but left tremendous influences on generations of filmmakers to come.

What makes a movie great? Sometimes we find it in an actor's performance, sometimes it lies in the plot, maybe is the suspense, or amazing action scenes. "A Man Escaped", a movie by acclaimed director Robert Bresson delivers none of those elements we usually associate with great films. However, the expertise and craftsmanship of Bresson makes for an unparalleled experience, full of non-stop suspense that keeps you at the edge of your seat, captivated by every action and every move. In fact, this is one of the first times in recent memory when I don't end up checking my watch, or looking around, or even exchanging a couple of words with my company. "A Man Escaped" simply doesn't allow you to catch your breath. Bresson is known for his very distinct style, in which his interest goes beyond performances or strong plots, but rather relies on the character of his scenes, in the way he builds each and every take to make you build the environment for yourself. Bresson is the mastermind behind the term "suggestive" cinema. He shows you just enough for you to build the scene on your own and it is such a subtle directing skill, that you don't realize unless you carefully study the art of his direction. Bresson submerges us in a prisoner's routine, inside a process of patience and conviction that eventually pays off. Bresson goes as far as to show us the result of the movie in its very title, fully confident that even when you know what will happen at the end, there is no way you won't feel the increasing tension, and electrifying suspense that starts from the very first scenes. At the end, it is a movie about patience, about the intellect of a prisoner whose will and desire to escape a prison portrays the strengths of the human spirit. However, the movie does not have uplifting phrases that often fall into clichés. This, ladies and gentleman, is what cinema can do for us. Less is more.

This movie, perhaps above all others, exemplifies just how important sound is in cinema. In fact, sounds (excluding dialogue) help carry the plot as much as the visuals and dialogue.

The crunching of the gravel under their feet really creates a sense of realism to the story. If you or I were escaping from prison, all the sounds Fontaine must pay attention to we must as well.

I doubt you'll find this film at your local video store, but I encourage everyone to check it out. It's like the Shawshank of the 1950s.

Was there ever a sparer, more concentrated film? The painstaking focus on the ritual-like preparation for the escape is almost wrenching in its calm severity; yet always graceful, always fluid. The details of the final escape make for one of the most memorable sequences in cinema - interspersed with episodes of doubt in which he falters for hours or more before taking the next step, just as he delays the escape itself for many days even though he knows his execution is imminent. It's almost like a sombre dance with death, or at least a morally exacting examination of one's limits and a fear of the transcendent (which in this case is represented merely by freedom itself). There are no moments of light relief or variation here, just an attention to process and causality - the concentration on the plan almost becomes a means of redemption, until carrying out the plan becomes almost superfluous if not destructive. Of all Bresson's films, this is the one that best engages on a thematic level while simultaneously working as narrative - his distilled gravity constitutes a fantastically effective suspense mechanism; a model of tight storytelling.

This is one superior made movie. I don't know what it as about prison movies but they often work out as such great ones. This one manages to be original as well, due to its approach and just overall execution of it all.

It's perhaps that we really start to feel and identify for and with the main character, in a prison movie. We get to see the restrained and strict world he lives in through his eyes and we can hear what he is hearing and almost feel what he is feeling because we as the viewer are so close up to him. In this movie this is even more the case than ever. The story is being told completely from his perspective and also features his narration over the sequences. It makes the movie really an effective one. It of course also helps the movie and story that we can root for the main character, since he is a member of the French resistance that got caught and held in prison by the Nazi's, during WW II. We only see what he sees and only hear what he hears. And this movie uses takes great advantage of this approach. I especially liked the incredible use of sound throughout the movie.

But the movie does not only use a great approach, it also manages to build up its story extremely well. I just love how he plan his escape in tiny steps throughout the movie. He picks up up an item here, makes a tool there, sends and gets some information here, studies the guards movements there and takes just tiny steps every time to get closer to his breakout from jail. It's incredible how well and intriguing this works out all for the movie. Fore the movie and its story itself are actually being quite simplistic. This is not an high budget movie and uses limited resources to tell its story with.

It's also one of those movies that uses non-professional actors, to add to the movie its realism. This is a thing that was popular for a while with Italian and French film-makers. It did not always worked out too well for just every movie but in this case you can't really complain about it. The characters simply work out, so the acting was convincing and realistic.

This is such a great minimalistic movie. It does incredibly well with its simplistic story and concept and picks a wonderful, effective approach to it all.

9/10

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