A Man Escaped (Un condamné à mort s’est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veu)
Directed by Robert Bresson
Written by Robert Bresson from a memoir by André Devigny
1956/France
Gaumont/Nouvelles Editions de Films
First viewing/Netflix rental
#322 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
[box] Le lieutenant Fontaine: I laughed nervously which soothed me.[/box]
This prison escape movie transcends its genre.
We first meet Lt. Fontaine in a car on his way to prison with another prisoner and his Nazi guards. Â Fontaine makes his first escape when the car stops for a trolley but is immediately captured. Â When he gets to prison, he is beaten to within of his life. Â He begins planning for his jailbreak immediately.
We follow Fontaine’s preparations in minute detail.  We also watch the prisoners help and encourage each other.  Fontaine proves to be an inspiration for those with less ambition.  But his plans depend on being in the same cell and circumstances.  A trip to the city for sentencing throws the whole enterprise into doubt.
This spare, unsentimental film is both a suspenseful rendering of the execution of an escape and an existential allegory for the struggle of the human spirit.  It emphasizes the need to keep moving forward with action and also deals with issues of trust and compassion.  Bresson’s images are always stark but stunning and we get a haunting Mozart score to round out the picture.  Recommended.
Trailer
Criterion Collection: Three Reasons
Recommended by me as well. Amazing how much tension and adrenaline Bresson manages to pack into such a spare movie. So much happens outside the camera that this is almost an alternative way of making movies.
His minimalism is amazing. Also he seems to do better with amateur actors than almost any other director.
I saw A Man Escaped a few days ago and I was really impressed!
I can’t believe I only recently (last year) discovered Bresson when I DVRed Diary of a Country Priest, Pickpocket and Au Hasard Balthasar off TCM and watched them all in the next week or so! (Well, I saw The Devil, Probably about 20 years ago but I don’t remember it at all.) It’s like there was this hidden cavern of cinema – the Bresson Grotto! – that I only recently stumbled into and everybody got there before me!
My favorite was Au Hasard Balthasar. About a minute after I deleted it off the DVR, I regretted it because I knew I’d want to see it again in a few weeks.
But A Man Escaped is good too! It works as a straight prison-escape movie but it’s also very thoughtful without beating you over the head about how thoughtful it is.
Isn’t it so great to discover a new director? It’s like a whole new world opens up. I’m looking forward to doing some of that as we get into the 60’s. I’ve still got a whole lot of Bresson that will be new to me as well.
Funnily enough as I read from the title he was condemned for happily venturing to serve a deadly souffle. Damn, even way back in the fifties they had to put up with a plague of reality cooking shows……thanks Bea, the must watch list expands.
In 1960, we will have A bout de souffle, a movie about a cook-off between two French chefs! 😉