A Man Escaped
|
Our Price: $55.89 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of A Man Escaped
Movie Review: A Man Escaped
Summary: 5 Stars
Bresson's spare but breathless film mesmerizes with the ring of truth. Based on Andre Devigny's own harrowing story, the prisoner's dogged efforts serve as powerful testament to man's ingenuity and will to survive. Leterrier is excellent as Fontaine (based on Devigny). Often unbearably suspenseful, this title offers large rewards in a small, understated package. Don't let it escape.Movie Review: Bresson is Bresson
Summary: 5 Stars
Nobody makes movies like Robert Bresson - and not many are so commited to a style of film-making as Bresson. He is one of the most minimal directors - and still one of the most emotional - brilliant film!Movie Review: A bitty bit of good news
Summary: 5 Stars
Don't waste $70 + on this DVD, Criterion has announced that they will be releasing this Bresson masterpiece.Movie Review: "Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où ..."
Summary: 5 Stars
Formidable. Regardez-le. Maintenant.Movie Review: Redundant but well worth seeing
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm a great admirer of Bresson's films. I appreciate his simplicity, and his refusal to churn out "professional" films that have little substance or artistic merit. His "Diary of a Country Priest" is one of the best films of the twentieth century.
But it seems to me that his "A Man Escaped" is flawed. The film is a pretty straightforward cinematic parallel to a memoir published after WWII of the imprisonment and escape of a French resistance fighter. In putting the story on film, Bresson uses a voice-over that reads portions of the text while showing scenes in which the actors perform what's being read. The upshot is that the effect is slightly pedantic--not enough to make the movie a bust, but just enough to be noticeable, thereby rupturing the film's flow. The viewer doesn't need to hear the main character tell you that he's filing down his dinner spoon so that he can make a chisel out of it while he's filing down his dinner spoon to make a chisel out of it. There's a strange redundancy here for a director well-known for his minimalist approach.
On the other hand, the cinematography in this, as in most of Bresson's films, is excellent. It's also the case that the actors, all of whom were nonprofessional, are quite good. So "A Man Escaped" deserves three and a half--and maybe a full four--stars.