‘I think my courage abandoned me for a moment and I cried…’
There is a curious obsession with prison films that speaks to our innate fear of being caged up in a cell. This is supported by the fact that many of these movies either feature or are explicitly about an attempt to escape. As I’m sure you have already gathered based on the title, A Man Escaped is another prison break film. But it’s also one of the best out there…
When Fontaine (François Leterrier), a Lieutenant in the French Resistance, is captured by the German army, it becomes clear that he must escape his tiny prison cell or face the firing squad. Over several weeks he hatches an ingenious plan with the help of other inmates, noticeably from Blanchet (Maurice Beerblock), an elderly gentleman in the next cell. With his execution imminent, and time running out, a spanner is thrown into the works of Fontaine’s plan when François Jost (Charles Le Clainche), a young French soldier, is abruptly assigned to his cell.
It should be said that I knew nothing of director Robert Bresson’s work, but I had read several ringing endorsements of A Man Escaped over the years, and it’s easy to see why. Everyone loves a prison break, and due to Bresson’s compelling cinematography and lighting, plus a captivating performance from Leterrier, A Man Escaped is essential viewing for anyone with an interest in European cinema. Indeed, it is only IMDB’s rule that states that a film must have 25,000 votes to be considered for the IMDB top 250 that precludes A Man Escaped from being included (it currently has a rating of 8.3/10 but ‘only’ 23,000 votes – something that will no doubt be corrected over time).
Some viewers find narration to be a distraction, a cop-out, but it is handled masterfully here, giving the impression of a man reading from his diary – a method that only brings us closer to Fontaine and his ingenious plot for escape. Crucially, by the end of the movie, we are rooting for our hero to achieve his goal, and the third act inclusion of the fresh-faced young soldier only raises the stakes, resulting in a thrilling denouement that cements the reputation of Bresson’s film as a masterpiece. I loved it.