CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

sergelamarche Simple story with little artifice of a man prisoner of the Nazis and condemned to the firesquad prepares an escape. For the 50s and with little means, this film works. The acting is mostly believable. It is still watchable but the escape from jail has been done and redone with many others, possibly betterly since.

Jackson Booth-Millard From director Robert Bresson (Pickpocket, Au Hasard Balthazar, L'Argent), I read about this film as an entry in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and it definitely, from the critic ratings and descriptions, sounded like a great film. Basically, set during the time of the Second World War, French Resistance member Lieutenant Fontaine (François Leterrier) is captured by the Nazis and is being taken to Montluc prison in Lyon, he attempts an escape when the car travelling is forced to stop, but he is apprehended and beaten, and handcuffed while incarcerated. He is at first in a cell on the first floor of the prison, and out of his window he is able to communicate with three French men who exercise in the courtyard, they obtain a safety pin for him and he is able to unlock his handcuffs, but this is pointless as he is soon moved to a cell on the top floor and no longer wears the handcuffs. Fontaine, now on the top floor in cell 107, notices that the boards in his jail door are joined together with low quality wood, so using an iron spoon he took after a meal he starts to chip away at the wood, after working for weeks he is able to remove three boards, walk around the hallway, and then return to his cell with the door restored. Another prisoner trying to escape is Orsini (Jacques Ertaud), but his attempt is unsuccessful as at the second wall his rope broke, he is beaten by the guards and tossed back in his cell, he is sentenced to be executed in a few days, but Fontaine is not dissuaded to continue his escape plan, using the light fitting in his cell he has made a hook and with old blankets made a rope, he fastens these together with wire from his bed. Following fellow prisoners concerned that Fontaine is taking too long to plan an escape, he is informed in headquarters that he will be executed, and returning to his cell he is soon joined by sixteen year old German army recruit cell mate François Jost (Charles Le Clainche), Fontaine is unsure whether to trust him, he has to decide whether to kill him or take him with him during his escape, the young man wants to escape also, so he is trusted. With the plan ready to go, Fontaine and Jost access the roof of the jail building, and slowly they use the hooks and ropes to climb down to the courtyard, killing the Nazi guard in their way, and then they climb over the wall and make it through an adjacent building, the film ends with the two men successfully walking out of the prison undetected. Also starring Roland Monod as Priest and Maurice Beerblock as Blanchet. Leterrier is a good choice as the leading character imprisoned and condemned, the story of this film is based on the memoirs of real life Montluc prison escapee André Devigny, the scenes were all filmed in the actual prison, and the film is full of mostly unprofessional actors, I agree films like Birdman of Alcatraz, Escape from Alcatraz and The Shawshank Redemption are indebted to this classic and fantastic prison drama. It was nominated the BAFTA for Best Film from any Source. Very good!

Jonathon Dabell Jean Luc-Godard once said "Robert Bresson is French cinema, as Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is the German music". Why, then, are Bresson's films so relatively neglected outside his native France? Perhaps the answer can be found in Bresson's philosophy of employing mainly non-professional actors, or his conscious choice to use lots of naturalistic sound in his films rather than hiring composers to pour dramatic scoring over the action. Whatever the explanation, Bresson's films are well worth seeking out. Arguably the best of all – and the one most likely to hook newcomers to the director's work – is Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent soufflé où il veut, known in English-speaking countries simply as A Man Escaped. It is an incredible film, viewable on one level as a taut escape story but equally viewable as a metaphorical story of hope and salvation.Fontaine (François Leterrier) is a member of the French Resistance during WWII. Captured by the Nazis, he is taken to the notorious prison of Fort Montluc near Lyon. After attempting to escape in transit, only to be recaptured, Fontaine is soon incarcerated at Montluc on the first floor of the jail. He is confined to his cell but also handcuffed for good measure. Later he is moved up to the top floor of the jail, considered so inescapable that there is no longer any need for his handcuffs, which are promptly removed. Fontaine gradually establishes that the cell doors are made of sub-standard wood and manages to steal an iron spoon one meal-time which he uses to painstakingly dismantle the door, putting it back together as he goes to prevent his escape plans from being detected. When Fontaine learns that he is soon to be executed, his need to escape becomes more urgent than ever. The plan is jeopardised when a new prisoner is moved into the same cell – a young German deserter named François Jost (Charles Le Clainche). Fontaine is unsure whether he can trust Jost and faces a terrible dilemma… should he tell the young man about his planned escape and risk failure, or kill him to ensure secrecy (and in so doing sacrifice his moral dignity)?Based on the true memoirs of P.O.W. Andre Devigny, A Man Escaped is brilliantly tense throughout. Much of the film passes wordlessly, capturing the methodical perseverance with which Fonatine works on his escape, emphasising the aching silence within the jail so as to make every scratch of Fontaine's spoon a potentially fatal giveaway sound. No film has ever used silence to generate such tension, but Bresson does it magnificently – there are moments where you almost feel the hero's heartbeat might be loud enough to scupper his plan. The excitement is almost unbearable and, better still, is sustained for long segments of the film. Léonce-Henri Burel's cinematography is excellent throughout, capturing a sparse and desolate atmosphere which seems to emanate from the prison wall itself. The performances are remarkable too – even more so considering that the leads are all non-professionals – with Leterrier in particular commanding attention as the grimly determined Fontaine. A Man Escaped is a masterpiece – one of the greatest French films of all- time, one of the greatest prison break films of all-time and one of the greatest hope-in-the-face-of-adversity films of all-time. The sooner it is rediscovered by modern audiences, the better.

kurosawakira Bresson's intimate, claustrophobic and spirituous prison break has become an epitome of effective, atmospheric minimalist film-making. At first it might seem solecistic in its silence, but this silence is not distance, it is utmost closeness, gets us under the skin. Trussing the rope, slowly working through the wood in the door, finding the escape route – Bresson allows the silence to make us accomplices; his birr for escape is internal to the very outrance that his outward appearance signals to us nervousness, procrastination. This struggle makes the film more powerful an experience through Bresson's use of silence and closed space, and very much like in Lumet's "12 Angry Men" (1958), the space – or the lack of it thereof – becomes an irresistible force in keeping us engaged.Leterrier carries the film, as he should lest the film completely lack in purpose and turn into a miserly exercise without humanity. He manages to project nerviness and nervousness, strength and weakness, determination and vacillation simultaneously, internalizing the thought process but with his body emphasizing everything we need to know at the moment. Again, the atmosphere is so tangible you feel like you're there. The sweat, the fear, the desire.