Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped

The Gene Siskel Film Center is showing a series of films linked together by religious themes, under the curious title, "The Religious Imagination in Cinema: Altered States & Sacred Blasphemies". Luis Bunuel's L'age d'or was shown last month, which explains the "blasphemy" part of the title. As for "altered states", I guess, Andrei Tarkovsky's headache inducing (okay, I didn't read this guide before watching the film) The Mirror should be the right film. Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped was shown in the same series and I managed to catch hold of the screening last Friday.

I feel ashamed to admit this but this is the first film by Bresson that I have seen. Now he is perhaps the most highly regarded filmmakers of all time, if not with the general viewers but at least with film critics, historians and knowledgeable film buffs. His films, specially Au Hasard Balthazar, L'Argent and Pickpocket, almost invariably find their place in any high-brow top ten list.

Anyway, A Man Escaped is exactly what you would expect if you have read anything about Bresson. Yes, it is austere and minimalistic and it concerns itself with the religious, mystical themes of faith, purpose, freedom, perseverance and human connection. The film is based on a true memoir of a French resistance fighter who was condemned to death by the Germans and who managed to escape from his confinement. The story in itself is as simple as it can get. The film from start to finish consists just of precise and meticulous staging and reenactment of the protagonist's attempts to escape the prison walls. But in Bresson's hands each of the scenes and each dialogue acquires a complex philosophical subtext. And then we start asking questions like, what does it mean to be free? How much of what happens is determined by fate and is there anything like free will? What about God? What is he there for if man has to do everything by himself, including sustaining himself in the face of evil? What about love and brotherhood? Are these things possible in the real world, given the realities of human nature?

What is important and interesting is that Bresson achieves this without any overt symbolism, visual trickery or philosophical voice over. The actors are all Bressonian, in the sense that they don't display any emotion. It is only through their gestures that we get a handle to their inner life. And for most of the film it is only gestures of the condemned man that we are privy to. There is hardly any dialogue, any music or any drama.

Yeah, I know the film sounds a little drab and dreary, something that would appeal only to the film snobs but actually that is not true. If you are looking for The Great Escape kind of action and suspense you might get disappointed, but even then the film does manage to hold your attention for the entire period of around two hours and keeps you interested in the fate of the protagonists. But the film will work very well for those people who have their Sartre and Kierkegaard in right place. (Okay, I don't!).

Anyway, here is a nice article on the film. Senses of Cinema has an informative summary of his career and other articles on various aspects of his work. And finally a collection of tributes to Bresson (he died a few years back). Check this one out by Paul Schrader:

For the last 15 years Robert Bresson has seemed like God himself, distant, beyond communication. Now, like God, Bresson is dead.