MUBI

Based on the real-life memoirs of World War II Resistance fighter Andre Devigny, A Man Escaped is the most rewarding escape-from-prison drama ever made. Far more affecting than the sentimental The Shawshank Redemption (1994), although both films are similarly affirmative of the indomitable human spirit, Bresson’s masterpiece makes the viewer live and breath every desperate moment of POW Lt. Fontaine’s ordeal, from his initial capture to his final joyous getaway (I don’t feel this gives away any details of the ending, given the film’s explanatory title!)

Robert Bresson’s austere and contemplative approach to film-making, famously compared to Yasujiro Ozu and Carl Theodor Dreyer by writer/director Paul Schrader in his book Transcendental Style In Film, is given it’s fullest expression here. The bleak, claustrophobic nature of events, combined with the dull routine of day to day prison life, allows Bresson to extract the maximum amount of compassion for our protagonist through the film’s stark detail. Every creak, crunch, squeak and crack of Fontaine’s attempts to carve through his cell door are magnified to heart-stopping effect against the deathly silence of the prison. In fact, the whole film is a masterclass in less-is-more sound technique. Apart from Fontaine’s narration, the soundtrack mostly consists of a restrained stillness, punctuated by noises of digging, scratching, cutting, footsteps etc. This technique is particularly effective during the film’s tense final half hour.

The only instance of music is the occasional yet powerful use of Mozart’s Great Mass In C Minor, played each time the prisoners collectively emerge outside to clean out their slops and then finally as Fontaine manages to make it over the wall and to freedom. Perhaps Bresson is choosing to use the music as an expression of shared experiences and liberty, as opposed to the silence of loneliness and confinement. Whatever the reasons, this selective use of music, rather than a blanket effect throughout, is just one aspect of A Man Escaped which raises it above the standards of most prisoner of war dramas – indeed, most dramas full stop.

A richly profound and spiritual cinematic experience, A Man Escaped is clearly informed by the director’s deep religious convictions (he was a lifelong Jansenist Catholic) which inspired themes of redemption and salvation in his work, as well as his own experiences as a prisoner of war. Bresson’s influential style was an expression of pure cinema, stripping away any theatrical illusions and capturing on camera the raw essence of human existence. A Man Escaped is Bresson’s great poem to the best and worst of humanity.

How is it possible that such an austere and restrained film, which gives away the ending in its own title, can be as tense and spellbinding as anything ever put on the screen? A Man Escaped is the ultimate testament to Robert Bresson’s powers as a filmmaker. Like all of the truly great directors, he strove for truth, not realism. One can be deceived that Bresson’s minimalist style is documentary-like, but it is not. He is one of the few directors who had his own distinct style that could never be reproduced by another and he never strayed from it throughout his whole career. He used non-actors(he referred to them as models), stripped them of all human emotion and through his camera was able to attain a purity that eventually stirs up great emotion in the viewer. Everyone of Bresson’s “models” who starred in his films never acted or displayed emotion in the traditional sense, yet we never forget any of them and are deeply affected by them. The main character Fontaine in A Man Escaped is no exception. Perhaps like no other Bressonian “model” we are in his corner from the very beginning and are at one with his plight and what he is experiencing. He becomes one of the great heroes in all of film. We also get one of the great thillers ever made. One wishes that all suspense or P.O.W films could take a cue from Bresson. His style perfectly fit the P.O.W film because not a frame is wasted. Every image and every sound only adds to the atmosphere. All melodrama and contrivances are stripped away to concentrate on the bare essentials. The result is not only a masterpiece, but interestingly enough Bresson’s most accesssible film. The reason being is that even though he made other masterpieces that are compelling and watchable as well, none of them were as optimistic about the human spirit as this film is. That’s not to say that optimism makes a film better, but it certainly makes it easier to watch if handled the right way. What is clear is that there are not many other films in which the viewer is pulled in and involved immediately in it’s world, without time to think or breathe, and doesn’t let up until the very end. Once the end comes Bresson allows you to breathe again and you feel exhilirated from an experience that you have rarely had watching a film.