Un Condamné à Mort S’est Échappé (1956)

Directed by Robert Bresson. Starring François Leterrier, Charles Le Clainche, Maurice Beerblock, Jacques Ertaud, Roland Monod, Roger Treherne.

Austere but gripping drama depicting with rigorous, rhythmic attention to detail the activities of a member of the French Resistance named Fontaine (Leterrier), imprisoned by the Gestapo during the war. Despite the impersonal visual approach, it’s an entirely subjective experience as seen through Fontaine, with far more distant, weary narration than dialogue between prisoners. What the film does through a meticulously itemized process—the spare thought structure, the formal presentation, the efficient flow of image and action—is create a jigsaw pageant with each piece snapping into place without embellishment or editorial. It has the urgency of political rhetoric, but there’s no mention of ideals or revolution, and it has the escalation of a breakout suspenser, but it’s too studied and introspective to subject the viewer to cheap thrills—no fat, no subterfuge, no surrender to formula. By removing back story and motivation from the prisoner, it’s all objective; clear-headed, the audience gets to share the purity of the moment-by-moment memoir (inspired by the real-life experiences of prisoner of war André Devigny). One minor but unmistakable flaw: the use of Mozart music on the soundtrack, perhaps the film’s only element where I felt a little “played”. Full title: Un Condamné à Mort S‘est Échappé ouLe Vent Souffle Où Il Veut. Released in English-language markets as A Man Escaped.

90/100