Former monthly contribution by TCM host Ben Mankiewicz to the TCM newsletter Now Playing in March, 2016.
A friend and colleague of mine, the movie critic Alonso Duralde, reminded me recently that a film we were reviewing together–I believe it was the Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle, The Revenant–featured characters with a trait I often admire on screen: they were exceedingly good at their jobs. Alonso was correct–I'd forgotten how much I enjoy seeing skilled professionals ply their trade in a movie.
Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped merits praise on many levels, but for me it's mostly a testament to extreme competence, intellect and determination. It's the story of Fontaine, a French Resistance fighter captured by the Nazis in Lyon in 1943. From the moment we first meet Fontaine, he's defined by his fixation on escaping. He tries to bust out of the car taking him to the prison–Bresson shows us Fontaine studying the road, the way the driver shifts the car, the sound made by the door handle. We learn instantly this will be a film that celebrates the details, no matter how small.
As a pioneer of the French New Wave, Bresson embraced minimalist style, yet A Man Escaped never feels small. Still, it never gives itself over to a moment of artificial grandiosity. If you're expecting a Hollywood moment–maybe a Paris moment–you'll be disappointed. But you were warned: The film opens with this line, "A true story, presented as it happened, without adornment."
This is really the anti-Shawshank Redemption, though don't get me wrong, I love Shawshank (I'm an American, after all), but A Man Escaped is completely stripped of sentimentality. There are no stirring speeches of patriotism or defiance, no parole hearings, no close-ups of villains. Instead, Bresson shows us the handiwork of the escape artist: the spoon Fontaine fashions into a tool to carve a hole in his wooden door, the window fasteners that give Fontaine his hooks, the blankets that become his ropes.
It's based on the memoir of Andre Devigny, a French soldier who joined the Resistance and eventually attempted to execute a painstakingly planned escape from Montluc Prison in Lyon. Naturally, Bresson shot the movie at the prison. And consistent with the French New Wave, he wouldn't cast professional actors–anything to avoid even a hint of theatricality.
The result is a thrilling 100-minute movie that completely earns its ending. I suppose it's about salvation and finding meaning in soul-crushing circumstances, but it is also a story of commitment, resourcefulness and proficiency in the face of true evil.
