Amazon.com video review:
"This story is true," reads the opening statement of A Man
Escaped. "I give it as it is, without embellishment." Based on the memoir by
Andre
Devigny, a member of the French Resistance imprisoned and sentenced to
death by the Gestapo during the German occupation, Bresson (himself at one
time a German POW) transforms Devigny's daring escape into an ascetic film
of documentary detail. Kept in a tiny stone cell with a high window and a
thick wooden door, the prisoner (renamed Fontaine in the film) makes
himself intimate with his world--every surface of his room, every sound
reverberating through the hall, and every detail of the prison's layout
that he can absorb in brief sojourns from his cell. Bresson magnifies every
detail with insistent close-ups and detailed examinations of every step of
Fontaine's plan, from constructing and hiding ropes and hooks to
painstakingly carving out an exit in the heavy cell door, and provides a
sort of Greek chorus of fellow prisoners. This is Bresson's first film to
feature a completely nonprofessional cast drilled to master precise
movements and deliver lines without dramatic inflection. The effect is a
drama where the slightest gesture carries the weight of a confession.
Bresson's films are not for everybody, and this austere picture hardly
carries the visceral punch of The Great Escape, but it's a drama of
profound power, with a gripping climax that's as absorbing and tense as any
high-energy action film. --Sean Axmaker
