It's amazing how differently you can make a prison escape movie. You can make something as explosive as Brute Force or as spiritual as The Shawshank Redemption. A director can use the genre to make social commentary as in Le grande illusion or take the audience through the meticulous, step-by-step process as in Le trou. Or you can choose to make a film about humanity and a natural desire to be free, like French director Robert Bresson's 1957 masterpiece A Man Escaped.

The film's full title is Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (A Man Escaped or: The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth). It is based completely on the real life story of Fontaine, a man who managed to escape a German prison camp during World War II. Bresson prefaces his film with a note assuring us that everything we are going to see happened in real life as it unfolds before us. Months are squeezed into the film's 99-minute running time and tension is kept at a maximum from the moment the film starts.

In the very first scene, Fontaine (François Leterrier) is being driven to the prison. The audience has no idea where he's being taken or if he is even a criminal. After all, he's the only one of the three men in the car without handcuffs. But soon we find that he doesn't want to be there as his fingers slowly begin moving towards the door handle. He manages to get out, but within seconds, he is captured again. At this moment as well, Bresson introduces us to the way we will see the film – moments that may seem important are not shown onscreen. The only way we see the Fontaine's capture is through the car window.

After being transferred to a cell on the top floor, of the prison, Fontaine quickly comes up with an escape plan. He spends weeks carving out a hole in his wooden door to slip through at night. Then, he uses whatever he can find to create ropes and a hook to sneak out.

Through Fontaine's eyes, we meet several characters in the prison, including a priest whose gives Fontaine Bible quotes and an old man who is his neighbor and skeptical about the plan. Fontaine becomes particularly close with the prisoner across the hall, who tries and fails to escape. His failure makes it possible for Fontaine to succeed, his neighbor reminds him. It is not a weight he takes lightly.

While a title like A Man Escaped should make the film's tension easier to take, it's amazing how it doesn't. It's like Mutiny on the Bounty. You know there's going to be a mutiny, but the way in which it enfolds keeps it exciting. (The similarities between these two films ends there, though.) For A Man Escaped, Fontaine is put through such harrowing situations – especially in that last 20 minutes in which he finally gets to pull off the escape – that it becomes impossible not to be drawn in. We know he's going to get out but how on earth is he going to get out that way!

A Man Escaped features no single recognizable actor, a common feature of Bresson's work. In one way, it's proof that anyone can act, but it's also proof that this is only true if you have a director like Bresson at the helm. The way he handled these grizzled inexperienced actors is a feat unto itself. With A Man Escaped and Pickpocket, Bresson brings out the talent to highlight the humanity of characters in unbelievable situations. I highly doubt anyone but him could get such a nuanced, realistic portrayal from François Leterrier.

But what really impressed me about A Man Escaped was how Fontaine during most of the film is holding himself back, constantly contemplating about how his escape would effect others and, of course, himself. He does nothing without thinking, as his narration and expressions show. After he carves his hole and gets his rope together, what's stopping him from leaving? Is it really his fear of the German guards or fear of something else?

A Man Escaped manages to be more about the man than the escape. It's also about the escape of a director who was actually imprisoned during the war, showing his talents as a filmmaker.

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