A Man Escaped

Paul Schrader called Robert Bresson one of the "transcendental" directors (along with Ozu and Dreyer, though I would go farther and add Bergman and Tarkovsky to the list). He was a master a minimilist style that was deceptively simple and often utilized profoundly spiritual metaphors or direct subject matter. This film is about a Frenchman who is imprisoned by the Nazi's in France during WWII. His single minded focus is escaping the prison -- a feat that all of the other prisoners point out is impossible. In fact, there isn't much more to the story than that, but as I said, he is deceptively simple. The preparation for the escape and the escape itself are magnficent to watch -- some have compared the sequences to Hitchcock, though I think that is unfair because Bresson worked on a plane that was distinctly his own. It isn't as overtly religious as some of his other films such as, Diary of a Country Priest or Au Hasard Balthazar, but the idea of being imprisoned and escaping is rife with metaphoric possibilites. It isn't an exciting film, but it is suspenseful and beutifully assembled. The New Wave directors found their share of inspiration from Bresson due to his minimilist style and use of non-actors, but even in the 60's when most French filmmakers where made irrelevant by the New Wave, Bresson continued making films his own way and I thank him for it.