Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
A Man Escaped is Robert Bresson at his best. Although many Bresson films are something of an acquired taste (or a taste not acquired), this one will have a definite appeal for most viewers. It’s a true-to-life prison escape story presented with a great deal of realism.
Historical Background: Robert Bresson evolved his own unique style of filmmaking without regard to conventional wisdom or box-office potential. The man was nothing if not stubborn in his approach, returning over and over again to his characteristic approaches pretty much regardless of the subject matter of a particular film. We know when we put a Bresson film into the VCR or DVD player, it’s going to have certain characteristics. There is going to be a sparseness and austerity. The settings are going to be actual locations to the extent possible and any fabricated sets are going to be simple and realistic. There will be few, if any, establishing shots, such as panoramas or aerial views. Many frames will be close-ups of hands or feet engaged in some routine activity of daily life. The plot will be simple and minimal with relatively little action. Dialog will be somewhat sparse as well. Music, when it’s utilized, will be existing classical works heard during relatively emotionless scenes and will not be used to underscore emotional content of scenes or to help viewers know what they are supposed to be feeling. The performers will be non-professionals trained in the “art” of flat, expressionless delivery of lines. The themes will include something of a religious, spiritual, or existential nature.
What makes A Man Escaped the best Bresson film that I have seen to date is that the subject matter of this film fits Bresson’s stylistic preferences to a tee. Consider some of the points of fit. Is there any setting more conducive to sparseness than a cell in a Nazi prison? The lack of establishing shots puts the viewer in something of the same frame of mind as the prisoner who is, after all, not given a tour of the prison or encouraged in understanding how his cell is situated in the larger context of the entire prison. The many close-ups of hands and feet at work is doubly appropriate, establishing the tight confines of the prison cell and riveting the viewers attention on the protagonist's manual efforts to advance his plan of escape. The prisoners are prohibited from speaking to one another (on the few occasions when they are out of their cells), so sparse dialog fits the circumstances of the film. Bresson is at great pains at the opening of the film to assert that the story is based on a true story (an autobiographical account written by Andre Devigny), so the realism that Bresson achieves by using the actual prison where the escape occurred and by using non-professional actors is again quite fitting. And finally, what kind of circumstance places greater demand on the human spirit than imprisonment, thus inherently raising issues of spiritual crisis and human courage? In short, this script was made to order for Bresson’s film style.
The Story: During the Nazi occupation of France, a French resistance fighter, Lt. Fontaine (François Leterrier), is captured and charged with sabotaging a bridge. While being driven to the prison where he will be held until disposition of his case, he attempts escape by jumping from the car, but is immediately subdued, pistol-whipped, and delivered to the prison.
Inside, life soon becomes the humdrum routine of idle confinement, emptying his slop bucket once a day, a brief opportunity to wash his hands and face, then more confinement. Occasionally, the weary days are unpleasantly marked in a staccato manner by the sound of an execution by firing squad. Fontaine immediately begins to occupy himself with ways to gather information from other prisoners and ideas for how to escape. He communicates with a neighboring prisoner through taps on the wall until he is moved to another cell on the top floor of the prison. Later he learns that the friend in the adjacent cell, who he never met, has been executed.
In his new cell, he begins to study the daily routine and the pattern of movements of the guards. He notices that the wooden door of his cell has more than one kind of wood and that the softer wood between the oak panels can be chiseled away using an iron spoon. Working slowly over many weeks, we learns how to remove enough panels to allow himself access to the corridor and still to be able to replace the panels in a manner that disguises his handiwork from the guards. Exploring the corridor, he discovers a skylight window that will permit access to the roof. He now has the beginnings of a plan. He inventories what he will need in order to escape: hooks and a dozen meters or so of rope strong enough to support his weight. We observe Fontaine as he gradually gathers materials from which these items can be made. All of these preparations must proceed with the utmost caution and discretion, lest the guards be alerted by odd sounds or visual clues.
Once a day the prisoners are permitted to wash up, which also allows them a few brief moments to exchange pleasantries, warnings, and words of encouragement. Despite the solitary nature of confinement is the prison cells, this is still ultimately a film very much about community support. There is a Catholic Priest who offers emotional support and spiritual guidance to Fontaine, as well as others who provide encouragement and material support. The question of one’s responsibility to one’s fellow man is brought to a head when Fontaine receives a cellmate very shortly before his plans for escape will be coming to a test. The cellmate is a fifteen year-old resistance fighter but, for all Fontaine knows to the contrary, a potential informant as well. Fontaine will either have to take the lad with him in the escape attempt or kill him.
Themes: In thinking about this film and the decisions made by Bresson in making it, one might initially question the wisdom of “giving away” the outcome up-front. The film includes what might be considered the ultimate spoiler by revealing the ending in the film’s title: “A man escaped.” The original French title was even more explicit: “Un condamné à mort s’est échappé”, which translates literally as “a man condemned to death escapes.” Most action thrillers capitalize on the uncertainty of an unknown ending for much of their tension. In this film, however, there is method in the madness of revealing the ending immediately. It shifts the viewer's attention and the dynamic tension of the film to two issues other than the outcome: the engineering of the specifics of the escape plan and the spiritual and emotional challenge inherent in putting one’s life on the line in a do-or-die effort.
As viewers, we become absorbed in every little detail of Fontaine’s plan. Like some of his fellow prisoners, we wonder about whether escape is even possible and whether Fontaine isn’t simply obsessing over a hopeless cause. We watch his careful ingenuity as he systematically works out solutions to one obstacle after another.
It still wouldn’t be a Bresson film, however, without the additional element of spiritual angst. This is a film that tackles the issue of “spirit” complexly, raising issues of both “Holy Spirit” and the “human spirit” and whether these are two aspects of the same issue or distinct concepts. It is, quite naturally, the Catholic Priest who raises and invokes the idea of “Holy Spirit.” By way of moral encouragement, the Priest hands Fontaine a piece of paper with a quotation from the Bible (John 3: 7-9, specifically). John Nicodemus had asked Jesus how a man can be born again? Jesus replied, in part, that “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” The first six of those words also served as the subtitle for this film in the original French release, so we understand that this Biblical quote has more than passing importance to the thematic substance of this film. Most readers will have difficulty understanding the exact meaning of that Biblical quote, especially because of the unfamiliar word “listeth.” It means “pleases” or “chooses”, so what the quote as a whole means is that “The Holy Spirit appears wherever it pleases.”
Later, however, we learn Lt. Fontaine’s somewhat more pragmatic view. In the washroom, when one of the prisoners suggests to Fontaine that he “Trust in God”, Fontaine replies, “we have to help Him.” Fontaine is not dismissing God’s role in the outcome, but is arguing that a prisoner’s own efforts are of as great or greater importance. We have a saying in English that “God helps those who help themselves” and the French have a nearly identical saying, “Aide-toi, le ciel t’aidera.” Imprisonment can precipitate a crisis of human spirit and will. Finding a reason to live under such circumstances requires that a person reach deeply into the well of existential meaning – whether by finding grace through the Holy Spirit or finding strength and courage in their own human spirit (or both). Lt. Fontaine is clearly born again, by his escape, in the corporeal sense. Whether that necessitated his first being born again in the spiritual sense is something for each viewer to ponder.
Another powerful theme of this film is our interdependence on one another – the importance of community. When another prisoner attempts to escape and fails, his last thought before execution is to ensure that Fontaine is provided with the information that he has acquired in his unsuccessful effort. Fontaine would not have known that he would need a third hook without the sacrifice made by the other prisoner.
Production Values: I’ve already commented above about how well the aesthetics of this film fit with its subject matter. Bresson’s invariable attention to detail and simple activities ideally suits the unfolding of the preparations for escape. The lack of establishing shots means that we see only what Fontaine sees and are as nervous as he is about what difficulties might lie beyond the visible domain. The camera never strays from Fontaine’s limited perspective, so we become totally immersed in his effort to escape. Like Fontaine, we stare at the sunlight streaming through the small, high window in his cell, inspired by its implicit promise of freedom but frustrated by the inability to capitalize on that promise. We listen to the lofty strains of Mozart’s C Minor Mass and the human dignity and spiritual elevation implied and contrast that to the inhumanity of imprisonment.
Bottom-Line: Sometimes Bresson’s cinematic style gets in the way of itself, but not in this case. A Man Escaped is both sparkling entertainment and a profound meditation on the crisis of human spirit that comes from incarceration. You won’t find a more compelling prison escape film anywhere. I highly recommend this film as perhaps the most accessible gateway to Bresson’s oeuvre. The New Yorker DVD is well mastered but the extras are quite minimal. There are theatrical trailers and chapter breaks, but not so much as an essay with the inner cover sheet. This film is in black-and-white and French language with English subtitles and has a running time of 100 minutes.
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