A MAN ESCAPED (Un Condamné à Mort s'est échappé) A
aka: The Wind Blows Where It Wills
France (102 mi) 1956 d: Robert Bresson
Cinéma vérité, employed before the New Wave filmmakers coined the term for their own films, this is one of Bresson’s most perfectly constructed films, a marvel in minimalist detail, a poem of liberation based on the text from the memoirs of the celebrated 1943 escape of French resistance fighter Lieutenant André Devigny from Lyon’s Ft. Monluc prison just hours before his scheduled execution. This prison held 10,000 prisoners where 7000 perished. Using real locations, this is a meticulous re-creation revealed in a totally authentic, painfully simplistic representation narrated by the prisoner, a study of one man’s obsessive dedication to freedom, Fontaine (François Leterrier), revealing the most minute of details, shown through the continuous repetition of daily routines, where reality is broken only by the intermittent use of music, the Kyrie Great Mass in C minor - Kyrie - K. 427- WA Mozart - Bernstein – YouTube (7:40) from Mozart’s Mass in C Minor. There is a secondary title added to the film, The Wind Blows Where It Wills, which comes from John 3:8 and is not in Devigny’s book, but refers to a brief discussion between prisoners on spiritual rebirth, where escape offers the opportunity to literally be born again. Bresson is suggesting there is an unseen spiritual force at work that’s driving the prisoners to stay alive, where mental alertness is paramount to escape. What’s interesting is how once Fontaine has managed to find a means to escape from his cell, which is the result of many months of monotony devising tools and chiseling away, where time literally stops, he doesn’t act right away, which adds plenty of tension due to the possibilities of what might happen. Only after handed his death sentence is he forced to act. Particularly memorable is the huge significance of the character Orsini, one of the other prisoners whose own failed escape, and subsequent execution, provided Devigny with the necessary information he needed.
This is the first Bresson film with an entirely non-professional cast, using only brief dialogue and non-emotive performances, relying heavily upon narration, like his previous film, also a reliance on offscreen sound effects. Through precise editing that may as well serve as an introduction to film construction, Bresson brilliantly establishes the hypnotizing rhythm of prison life that almost dulls the senses, showing no variance, where Fontaine’s escape has as much to do with boredom as courage, as a man must make use of his time, where the subtle interplay between prisoners takes on greater significance with the passage of time, as they pass notes, exchange ideas, look out for one another, and even encourage disillusioned souls to keep the faith. Confined to a 6 foot by 9 foot cell with no toilets for 23 hours a day, allowed less than one hour to clean themselves and throw away their waste, which includes walking in formation up and down the stairs to the designated wash site, much of it in silence as the prisoner’s are forbidden to talk, the solitude of each man alone in such constricted space takes its toll on many, exacting a price in personal torment. Rarely showing the faces of the captors, whose impending footsteps or the rattle of keys are heard instead, men are routinely removed from their cells for interrogations, official hearings, or executions, where the pipeline of news spreads fast. Speaking to an unseen prisoner in an adjacent cell through windows may help pass the time, or often they just tap on the walls between cells to let people know they’re still alive, as building a network of fraternal friendships is all they have in the way of offering encouragement or hope.
This is the first Bresson film with an entirely non-professional cast, using only brief dialogue and non-emotive performances, relying heavily upon narration, like his previous film, also a reliance on offscreen sound effects. Through precise editing that may as well serve as an introduction to film construction, Bresson brilliantly establishes the hypnotizing rhythm of prison life that almost dulls the senses, showing no variance, where Fontaine’s escape has as much to do with boredom as courage, as a man must make use of his time, where the subtle interplay between prisoners takes on greater significance with the passage of time, as they pass notes, exchange ideas, look out for one another, and even encourage disillusioned souls to keep the faith. Confined to a 6 foot by 9 foot cell with no toilets for 23 hours a day, allowed less than one hour to clean themselves and throw away their waste, which includes walking in formation up and down the stairs to the designated wash site, much of it in silence as the prisoner’s are forbidden to talk, the solitude of each man alone in such constricted space takes its toll on many, exacting a price in personal torment. Rarely showing the faces of the captors, whose impending footsteps or the rattle of keys are heard instead, men are routinely removed from their cells for interrogations, official hearings, or executions, where the pipeline of news spreads fast. Speaking to an unseen prisoner in an adjacent cell through windows may help pass the time, or often they just tap on the walls between cells to let people know they’re still alive, as building a network of fraternal friendships is all they have in the way of offering encouragement or hope.
Nearly perfectly realized, the film is one of Bresson’s greatest achievements. Set up by the monotony of earlier routines, the escape itself breaks the cycle, lasts most of the night, and is a marvel of what can be revealed in near darkness, using only the briefest glimpses of light, particularly one shot which must have lasted a lifetime in the prisoner’s eyes when he is atop a roof, protected by the darkness, but his eyes peek out in the light and stare, assessing the right moment. Their meticulous preparation leaves them ready and well-prepared, having to scale several high walls, but adrenaline and a fear of the unknown keeps them anxious ridden. Always avoiding sensationalism, Bresson ceases the narration and uses sound to lead the action, such as the unseen marching of sentry guards, or a guard making the rounds on a squeaky bicycle literally for hours on end, where changes in sound alerts them for the right opportunity to move ahead, where we hear whistles and the rumblings of incessant train sounds passing nearby, always accentuating the heightened tension of the escape, but also ironically commenting on the so-called perfect techniques of the German Gestapo who used the scheduling of trains to send Jews to the gas chambers. André Bazin called this film “an unusual film that resembles no other,” winner of Best Director at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. Eternally connected, both Devigny and Bresson, who himself spent 18 months in a German prisoner camp, died in the same year of 1999.
