There's a point in the second half of A Man Escaped when a new prisoner (Jost) joins the central figure (Fontaine) in his thus far solitary prison cell. The new prisoner expresses amazement at the very idea of someone thinking they can escape from this prison - look at the walls, the guards, the steel bars. He is reasonable in his thinking as a newcomer to the scene, but we, the audience already know that yes it is possible to escape and how this feat is to be engineered.
The entire film leading up to that point is a clinically minute study of how one plans an escape. Short on words, although there is a regular voice-over, this is a visually arresting form of storytelling. Contrary to some IMDb comments that the film might be perceived as slow-moving or boring, I actually think its riveting. My 8 year old son was sitting in the TV lounge when I started the film. He was drawn into the film within minutes (despite the subtitles) and sat through the entire film and really enjoyed it. With the attention span of youngsters and the additional challenge of it being in a foreign language and B&W to boot, it requires masterly storytelling to engage such a young audience.
There is great attention to detail and authenticity. The real life prisoner (Andre Devigy) was a consultant on the film, it was filmed in the actual prison where the prisoner escaped from and even the original rope and hooks used for the escape were used for the film! This is almost a documentary but with non-professional actors recreating in a compressed time frame actual events. For me, Bresson's Pickpocket's train sequence is among the finest in cinema history. Its obvious throughout A Man Escaped that the same genius who made Pickpocket crafted this masterpiece.
The entire film leading up to that point is a clinically minute study of how one plans an escape. Short on words, although there is a regular voice-over, this is a visually arresting form of storytelling. Contrary to some IMDb comments that the film might be perceived as slow-moving or boring, I actually think its riveting. My 8 year old son was sitting in the TV lounge when I started the film. He was drawn into the film within minutes (despite the subtitles) and sat through the entire film and really enjoyed it. With the attention span of youngsters and the additional challenge of it being in a foreign language and B&W to boot, it requires masterly storytelling to engage such a young audience.
There is great attention to detail and authenticity. The real life prisoner (Andre Devigy) was a consultant on the film, it was filmed in the actual prison where the prisoner escaped from and even the original rope and hooks used for the escape were used for the film! This is almost a documentary but with non-professional actors recreating in a compressed time frame actual events. For me, Bresson's Pickpocket's train sequence is among the finest in cinema history. Its obvious throughout A Man Escaped that the same genius who made Pickpocket crafted this masterpiece.