#man escaped

[howardhawkshollywoodannex]

PIckpocket is ranked number 81 and A Man Escaped (Un Condamne a Mort S’est Echappe) is ranked number 89 on the 2018 edition of the TSPDT list of the 1,000 Greatest Films.  Both are written and directed by Robert Bresson.

Critic Leslie Halliwell gave Pickpocket two stars out of four and wrote “An austere but moving and complex drama, notable for its scenes of thievery.”  A Man Escaped was not reviewed.

[tonightsselection]

A Man Escaped

this movie is very honest about its subject.  it is a prison escape movie, and nothing else.  it follows one character, starting immediately after his arrest and ending a few seconds after his feet touch the ground on the other side of the wall, and it makes no attempt to weave in any story or subplot other than planning, preparing, and executing the escape.  this extreme purity of message conveys the emptiness of life lead by prisoners in nazi-occupied france, and also keeps the tension ratcheted up throughout the entirety of the movie.