Artivels Undescribable Perfection

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

drazsika-716-814820 An ultimate story! What else do you need for a perfect movie: a story of a niemand: an anonymous soldier / partisan that is sentenced to death. And his head is set to escape: and the same way as it happened in reality, he escapes.A tense, existentialist movie - that, for once has a (most simple) story.I wasn't bored for one millisecond...

Sergeant_Tibbs After watching Mouchette recently, Robert Bresson's minimalist style was starting to grow on me. Although I found it sterile in something like Pickpocket, I've now found where his emotion comes from. A Man Escaped provides a thrilling setup right from the start. Whereas Pickpocket's best scenes were the ones featuring its title, A Man Escaped is constantly about the protagonist's slow progression to a breakout and it's a masterclass in designing a resourceful character. It could hold onto cheap tension, but it trusts subtle touches instead and results in a very mature approach. It's all about how humanity at its core has a need for escape as an act of self-preservation and how far they will go to get it to the point of considering killing someone else. This film is definitely Bresson's craft at his best but it's a little too dry to call it a favourite and not as emotional as Mouchette, if more psychologically interesting. Even so, Bresson sure does find a way to make his films feel much longer than they are with his crossfading editing technique. Is this the best his style can get or is there more awaiting me? We'll have to see.8/10

kurosawakira Bresson's intimate, claustrophobic and spirituous prison break has become an epitome of effective, atmospheric minimalist film-making. At first it might seem solecistic in its silence, but this silence is not distance, it is utmost closeness, gets us under the skin. Trussing the rope, slowly working through the wood in the door, finding the escape route – Bresson allows the silence to make us accomplices; his birr for escape is internal to the very outrance that his outward appearance signals to us nervousness, procrastination. This struggle makes the film more powerful an experience through Bresson's use of silence and closed space, and very much like in Lumet's "12 Angry Men" (1958), the space – or the lack of it thereof – becomes an irresistible force in keeping us engaged.Leterrier carries the film, as he should lest the film completely lack in purpose and turn into a miserly exercise without humanity. He manages to project nerviness and nervousness, strength and weakness, determination and vacillation simultaneously, internalizing the thought process but with his body emphasizing everything we need to know at the moment. Again, the atmosphere is so tangible you feel like you're there. The sweat, the fear, the desire.

blanche-2 "A Man Escaped" is a 1956 French film by Robert Bresson, starring Francois Leterrier and Charles Le Clianche. It's the story of a resistance member, Fontaine (Leterrier) who is imprisoned by the Nazis. He spends all of his time plotting a detailed escape, using items like a spoon, clothing, lantern hooks, whatever he can get his hands on that will help him in his quest. Still, even when Fontaine has it all worked out, he hesitates to go for it. Then he learns that he is to be executed. If that isn't bad enough, he gets a roommate, Jost (Le Clianche). Fontaine has to escape quickly now, but supposing his new cell mate is an informant? Should he take him along...or kill him? This may be the most nerve-wracking movie I've ever seen. It's absolutely agonizing. I kept saying out loud, go already! I was a wreck for this man. The film is done so painstakingly, with the character of Fontaine narrating.Leterrier, with his thin face and haunted look, essays the role of Fontaine perfectly. As his cell mate, Le Clianche is excellent, a young man whose motives can't initially be read.Very tense, very suspenseful, you'll find it hard to breathe or swallow. Highly recommended for a totally involving experience from one of the French post-war masters, Robert Bresson.