Movie Review: “A Man Escaped” ★★★★★
There is no such thing as pure cinema—an unadulterated form of filmmaking that sticks true to the medium’s undefined roots. Whether it be silent films, talkies, arthouse films or big-budget commercial films, every film deserves recognition as a member to the large pantheon we know as cinema. That being said, I do believe that some films better attain the full expressive potential of the medium than others. Filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky and Ingmar Bergman have consistently demonstrated their understanding of film as something beyond just visual storytelling. Film is a deeply visceral mosaic of time, bolstered by sound and images, that fully embodies and expresses an emotion or concept. Robert Bresson is amongst the finest to ever accomplish this perfect fusion of concept with craft.
Nobody makes films like Robert Bresson. His stories are completely unadorned. Everything is presented as clearly as it should be. There are no movie stars, no special effects and absolutely no contrived thrills. To put it simply, he has removed all of the distractions that we commonly associate with entertaining cinema. Instead of constantly trying to spike your interest, Bresson holds you in a hypnotic grip where the raw truth of every frame should sufficiently entice you.
This is most apparent in what is arguably his crowning achievement, “A Man Escaped” (1956). Like many of Bresson’s other films, this is a film about people confronting immense despair. In 1943, a recently-captured resistance fighter named Fontaine is carted off to Montluc, a Nazi prison camp in Lyon, where he will be executed. From the film’s very first scenes, Fontaine is devising his escape. He first tries to run away from the unlocked car carrying him to his doom, only to be recaptured and severely beaten. The rest of the film details his second attempt, a far more intricate plan involving the patient disassembling of a prison door and tightropes made out of hooks and bedsheets. The film is not about whether or not Fontaine will succeed—the title of the film readily spoils that for us—but about how he endures.
The airtight nature of the film’s story mixes perfectly with Bresson’s disciplined approach to filmmaking. It helps that Bresson himself was captured by the Nazis for supposedly participating in the resistance during World War II. The experience of war is, after all, governed by the sensory details of a soldier’s given environment. Viewing the entire story through Fontaine’s perspective, we gain an extremely intimate understanding of his prison cell. Bresson’s simple vocabulary of close and insert shots, and calm, timely editing gels well with Fontaine’s attention to detail. However, what I think is most impressive about Bresson’s craftsmanship is his brilliant use of sound design. He carefully considers every combination of voice over, music and non-diegetic sound, so that each element plays out exactly how it needs to in order to contribute to the tone of a scene. As much as “A Man Escaped” is dedicated to what is being shown, it is also inadvertently about what is not being shown, which relates back to soldiers’ limited view. Bresson uses sound and music sparingly to enforce the deprived state of Fontaine’s environment. The film’s soundscapes can be so barren that each sound, no matter how painfully small, becomes inordinately important. A distant click could signal mortal danger or blissful hope. As these sounds manifest and mutate in Fontaine’s mind, they do in ours as well, effortlessly keeping the audience entranced.
Based off this review, “A Man Escaped” may come off as a driveling bore, where nothing really happens. Is this true? Well, there are few films I find more captivating. More importantly, “A Man Escaped” feels like a lesson in cinema. The film shows us what is purely necessary and what is not, completely recalibrating our sense of what cinema is. Everything we’ve ever been accustomed to in cinema is shown to be superfluous. “A Man Escaped” is a rare film that I can appreciate for what it is, what it is not and what it has taught me. It is in the sheer rawness and transparency of each shot, as well as the subtle shifts in facial expressions and ambient noises that Bresson has uncovered the truths of life.