Popular reviews

• 

  Review by karsten ★★★★★ 31

  There are some days where at 22 years old I feel like a doofus for not having seen as much as I have. Could be the 30 comments I get a day that go something like "How have you not seen ____ ????" But there are other days, today being one of them, where I feel like the luckiest person in the world getting to experience a specific film for the first time.

  A Man Escaped is my first Bresson. I can't explain why but recently I've been very obsessed with films that tell a story and idea in the simplest ways. Bresson is famously one of the masters at that and this is widely regarded as his masterpiece for…

• 

  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★ 5

  75/100

  Process, process, process. Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped focuses more on the different valleys and peaks of reaching an end goal rather than the consequences of such tribulations. It's a film comprised of footsteps, whispers, minor errors, minor victories, and the celebratory rush of triumph over hardship.

  While most films "fade to black" to signify an end or a particular moment of importance, the key to A Man Escaped is its usage of the fade as an assured step into danger and the reluctant quest for hope. For Bresson, every movement and action is just the beginning.

• 

  Review by Adam Friedland 3

  A French resistance fighter is imprisoned for calling hitler a Voldemort

• 

  Review by josh lewis ★★★★★ 2

  a formally stripped-down, detailed process of human resilience in the face of historical deprivation and isolation.

• 

  Review by Will Menaker ★★★★★

  The true story of a French resistance fighter who broke out of the notorious Montluc prison in Klaus Barbie's Lyon, where 7,000 men where executed during the German occupation. Bresson does this thing where he never shows any of the prison guards' faces or gives them names or any discernible personality or character. The film remains in tight focus on the main character's face and especially his hands. His captors are abstracted, their cruelty and oppression is never dramatized or given a face or name, we just hear the clink of their keys, the shuffle of their feet, a barked order to stop talking, and the staccato of machine gun fire as they execute another prisoner. The grinding routine and…

• 

  Review by Edgar Cochran ★★★★★ 2

  As a realistic, breathtaking, influential and heart-pounding recount of a true POW story, it is a shining triumph. Bresson's style of constantly moving from one relevant event to another and letting images speak while assigning a great importance to silences and facial expressions confirms the truth hidden in the phrase "in simplicity lies complexity". Your complaint is that the title sells away the ending, right? Bresson has never cared about the outcomes; instead, his humanity testaments focus on the struggle of life itself given a set of circumstances. That's why he's misunderstood: not all people have fought for their lives even once.

  97/100

• 

  Review by Melissa Tamminga ★★★★★ 2

  "With both hands, I restrained the beating of my heart."

• 

  Review by Scott Anderson ★★★★★ 6

  A Man Escaped is my first ever Robert Bresson film, and what an incredible way to start. I had no idea how literal the title would be here, as this truly is a story about a man trying to escape from start to finish, a work that thrives because of its minimalism rather than in spite of it.

  I have no idea what the typical Bresson style is and whether or not this film represents it, but I really appreciated the fact that throughout the entire work the focus stayed nearly primarily on the lead Fontaine besides a brief conversation or two amongst other inmates, but even then he was the basis of their words. Much of the film not…

• 

  Review by George Clark ★★★★ 1

  Well, the film's title surely stayed true to its word. Austin’s pick for this week’s Film Club, Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped, highlights the rather lengthy process a man undertakes in an attempt to escape a Nazi controlled prison in France...and it makes for a pretty great watch!

  It takes one hell of a film to maintain a high level of suspense whilst giving away the ending in its very title, but that's exactly what Bresson manages to accomplish within. His direction is rather unobtrusive with a slow pace, yet the film turns out to be extremely suspenseful in its simplicity, with the entire film leading up to his escape showcasing a clinical minute study of how he plans to…

• 

  Review by liam f ★★★★★ 2

  now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go home and have a heart attack

• 

  Review by Sam Meltzer ★★★★ 2

  This film DEFINES the phrase “simple yet effective” because the story itself isn’t complex but the amount that the movie can build off of it is incredible. We follow Fontaine, a man who has recently been arrested and is planning an escape. What’s so interesting about this character is his intelligence. In jail, one is not given much to use or to do in their cell. The film does a terrific job at showcasing how this man can do so much with so little. He is able to find the smallest and most minute details within his cell and prison to plan an escape. He understands that if he were to screw up on one part - like making a…

• 

  Review by Jake Cole ★★★★★

  Contained within the tiny cell and the limiting roaming space of its protagonist, A MAN ESCAPED practically begs the usual Bresson label of "ascetic," but how can anything be thought of as stripped-down with sound design this considered, this meticulous? Bresson doesn't expressionistically heighten the sounds, but he doesn't need to: even the dull tap of an iron spoon knocking a loose piece of door back into place or the faint ripple of rifle shots from the firing squad position at the other end of the prison become unbearably tense, pressing down on the prisoner to remind him of how quickly he could be caught and the fate that awaits him regardless. The best answer to those who feel that being spoiled on a film's ending renders it not as exciting.