I don’t think that I could say that I like any of the seven Robert Bresson films I’ve had the chance to see. One of them (Lancelot du Lac, the only one I saw on its theatrical release) I loathe. I dislike "L'argent," and can't work up much enthusiasm for "Mouchette" either. The three black-and-white ones he made during the 1950s (Diary of a Country Priest, A Man Escapes, Pickpocket) are masterpieces. The adjective most often applied to Bresson’s films is "austere." The one never applied is "ingratiating." The fabled "Gallic charm" is not on display even back in romantic movie employing actors that Criterion resurrected (Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne).

It seems to me that there is something quite fitting in stripping down the lengthy French title "Un Condamné à mort échappé (One [male] condemned to death escaped) and stripping off the not immediately clear subtitle "Le vent souffle ou il veut" (unpacked below) to simply "A Man Escaped" in English. A very meticulous escape from a Nazi prison by a French Resistance officer is very meticulously portrayed in the film. There is not very much dialogue, as the prison guards forbid talking. The only music is a reiteration of the opening of the Mozart C-Minor Mass: seven times with only a few bars of instrumental introduction to the "Kyrie eleison," plus three occasions in which the chorus comes in (one under the opening credits, one as another prisoner tries to escape, once at the very end). There are no professional actors (the lead, François Leterrier, was a student at the Sorbonne, who later became a film director) and the authenticity of the portrayal of an escape that occurred extends beyond filming in the prison (Montluc in Lyon) and cell to using the ropes and hooks that the real prisoner made and used.

In some sense there is no suspense, either, since the ending is revealed in the title (the French title adding the information that the man who escaped was condemned to death, this verdict is reached midway through the movie). Even with the success preannounced and without any of the tension-heightening music of Hollywood thrillers, and with all the killing occurring offscreen, there is some suspense. There is no explanation of the plan in advance, and the viewer has not seen the escape route or the obstacles on it before the escaping prisoner reaches them. Indeed, in general, the viewer sees less than the prisoner, even of the cell in which he spends most of the movie's running time. The viewer does not see the guards or the captors or the interrogator/judge who condemns the prisoner to death (in the Hotel Terminus, the headquarters of Klaus Barbie and the title of the documentary about his wartime crimes and eventual trial).

Although stripped of movie stars and (of other?) cheap thrills, "A Man Escapes" might be even better if it was even more stripped down. I think that there is too much voice-over retrospective narration (Bresson seems to have realized this later on, too). I find the Mozart interruptus irritating (the frustration is from the interruptus, precisely because the Kyrie of the C-Minor Mass is so magnificent). I think the audience could see at least what Lt. Fontaine (the prisoner) sees, as he plans his escape. And the opening portrayal of him waiting to make a break en route to the prison seems to me to occupy too much screen time. The viewer is going to see plenty of the prisoner's hands later on, and doesn't need to see so much of them poised to reach for the car door handle.

"A Man Escapes" is, nevertheless, a very impressive piece of film-making. The entirely non-professional cast is without exception convincing. The single-minded escapee is entirely devoid of swagger. François Leterrier performs tentativeness (seeming to the edge of timidness) and laser beam-like focus on doing what almost every other prisoner believes is impossible, getting out.

In that Bresson had already made one film about nuns and one about a priest, Christian resonances could not have been unexpected by a mid-1950s audience. And that the musical theme is "Christ have mercy" is already clear during the opening credits. As he works toward escaping, Lt. Fontaine is encouraged by a Protestant minister who is a fellow prisoner and blessed by a Catholic priest who is also held at Montluc before Fontaine breaks out. And there is the subtitle: "The Spirit breathes where it will" is the conventional modern English translation—words to Nicodemus from Jesus in the third chapter of the Gospel According to John. Fontaine's escape required more than his perseverance and meticulous workmaship. It required luck (the atheistic view) or grace (the Christian view). There is also a very strong Christian resonance in one prisoner dying so another may live, though Orsini does not seem particularly Christ-like before his martyrdom.

The text from the apostle John is passed by the minister to Fontaine in the movie. The true story (in a book by André Devigny, who was a technical advisor to the film-making and on the set) has warrant of a Gospel text being passed to the prisoner. However, the text that was passed was not this one, but the more straightforwardly encouraging (and immediately recognizable) "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you." Considering the almost compulsive fidelity to showing what happened exactly as it happened, where it happened, down to using the original hooks and ropes, this is a switch loaded with meaning about Bresson's intent to add a level of mysticism to the (wavering) faith the prisoner has that he will save himself. Knocking at the door (or, in his case, taking it apart) is not enough. There must be a leap of grace for salvation, and escape from condemnation... And another one by Fontaine that I will not explicate on spoiler grounds (and having already written a lot about this somewhat forbidding film).

Such theological heaviness does not weigh down the movie. Although defying the expectations of crowd-pleasing thriller, "A Man Escaped" is fascinating to watch, and a showcase for the significant use of sound (and I don't mean either the majesty of Mozart or the narration... or even the dialogue). Easier to admire than to like, "A Man Escaped" had very poor box office receipts in America in 1957, though it was immediately recognized in Europe (not least by the critics who would launch the "New Wave") as masterful direction.

The DVD includes an unsubtitled French theatrical trailer (that manages to be even less commercial than the film is) along with trailers for Bresson's Lancelot du Lac, plus New Yorker video releases "The Son," "Taking Sides," and "Stone Reader" (yuck, yawn, yawn, and yawn).. The film stock from which the DVD was struck was not completely clean, but the DVD provides better images and sounds of this rarely screened masterwork than the Pacific Film Archives could manage half a century ago (and I image the film stock of prints has deteriorated further since then). I'm disappointed in the lack of analytic perspectives, but glad to have the DVD.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD