99. A Man Escaped (1956)
Also at joint 95th on the 2022 Sight & Sound critics' poll, Robert Bresson's perfectly crafted minimalist prison drama offers a reflection on the divine mysteries of grace and salvation.
Contains spoilers
Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped takes one of the essential elements of storytelling – the overcoming of an obstacle, against the odds – and distils it down into a form so pure, that very little else is required. The result is one of the most compelling ninety minutes in the history of cinema.
Fontaine, a French resistance fighter, is incarcerated by the Gestapo in Montluc Prison in occupied Lyon. It is 1943. From the very beginning of the movie, when he tries to escape from the car transporting him to the prison, we know there is only one thing on his mind. Recaptured, he is beaten and placed in isolation. Soon after, he is moved into general population, and we settle into the grinding routine of prison life. What then plays out is a study in formal and dramatic minimalism
In the highly contained and constrained surrounds of the cell, and the prison of which it is part, decluttering is imposed rather than chosen. In a world of surfeit, the value of objects can easily be forgotten. Here every object takes on great significance; every object has a function (and often multiple, hidden functions). Our attention is drawn to the practical application of human ingenuity in the manipulation of these objects. The pin and the spoon are the things that allow Fontaine to initiate his plan of escape. The wire from the bed frame, the sheets, the stuffing of the mattress. Tools of salvation. But there is also great danger in relation to these same objects. This is a world in which possession of a pencil can get you shot.
The other tool (if we can call it that) required in a place like this is faith. And I say that, not just because of the improbability of his success, but because of the forces that are ranged against him. Fontaine finds himself in the devil’s territory. This fight – this story – calls for more than just fortitude and luck, although it calls for them too. It must be built upon anagogical foundations, upon the Divine life and an active participation in it. The film’s cryptic subtitle, taken from John 3:8, points us in this direction, The wind bloweth where it listeth. Like the wind, the grace of God is a power that is unseen and ungovernable, salvation rests upon the Spirit and is unknowable to us, and we must remain open to being carried by the wind, to rebirth, to being returned to Reality. The crucial line of motion here is spiritual.
Keen eyes will spot that I’m drawing on the philosophy of another great Catholic artist here, Flannery O’Connor, a writer for whom the notion of grace represents more than just a theme, but a function of fiction and good storytelling in general. For O’Connor the truly worthwhile story depends upon an action or gesture by a character that is unexpected, but still totally appropriate for that character. It must suggest both the world and eternity. It indicates where the real heart of the story lies. The testing ground for this in her own work is often built around a moment of violence. ‘I have found,’ she says, ‘that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace.’
Fontaine presents a somewhat awkward, boyish figure. He is slightly built, well-mannered, honest. We suspect he has a good heart. By the last third of the film, we’ve perhaps forgotten he was a resistance operative, a man necessarily familiar with violence. Then, with the escape fully prepared, he is thrown a curve ball. Shortly before the attempt, he returns to his cell to find Jost, a 16-year-old soldier accused of desertion, who Fontaine thinks might be a plant by the Nazis to get information out of him. It’s then that we hear him weighing up whether to kill the young boy, or to bring him into his plan. It’s the seeming ease with which he contemplates murder that I think fits O’Connor’s definition – it unsettles the viewer, and is both in character and beyond character.
Ultimately, he decides to trust the boy. A decision that is its own leap of faith; one that pays off, for Jost turns out to be a trustworthy companion, and the chances of success are far higher with two rather than one. That doesn’t make the actual escape any less agonising. There are mistakes, unanticipated hitches, and moments of doubt. Eventually, the need for violence does arrive when Fontaine is forced into killing a guard.
It’s soon after this that the whole thing almost falls to pieces. The pair have secured a makeshift rope between the inner and outer walls. Another guard is cycling in a loop below them. They appear frozen, unable to act. They wait for hours, almost to the moment when they’ll lose cover of darkness. It seems highly likely that the rope will give way, that the guard will spot them. It’s all been a waste of time. Only the firing squad remains. Suddenly, Fontaine springs up and shimmies along the rope to the other side, before Jost does the same. They are across. It was part of the plan all along, but by now it feels like a miracle, which of course it was.
As they set foot on the street beside the outer wall, Jost turns to Fontaine and whispers, ‘If my mother could see me now.’ It’s perhaps one of the sweetest, most innocent, and most truthful lines ever to end a film. Sure, there’s a scintilla of youthful pride, but we must allow him that. He’s just escaped the devil’s clutches.