A MAN ESCAPED @The Brattle Theatre

Today I caught a matinee of A MAN ESCAPED, part of the Films of Jacques Doillon series currently running at the Brattle. The "Films of Jacques Doillon" includes a retrospective of the director's work, but also screens favorite film influences selected by the director. ESCAPED is one of the latter, directed by Robert Bresson.

The story is based on the memoir of French resistance fighter Andre Devigny, captured and imprisoned in a Nazi-run prison camp in Lyons, France in the 1940s. It is a prison break story, and although you'll recognize the now-classic trappings of such stories, the movie is certainly not the action-packed thriller Hollywood would churn out today. This movie, with its stark settings and uncomfortable, claustrophobic shots, puts the audience in the prison with Fontaine (the adapted Devigny character).

For weeks of his time, we experience with Fontaine the isolation, the claustrophobia, the deadening, maddening repetition of the structured life of a prisoner. In voiceover we hear Fontaine's actual thoughts as he lies through his teeth to his jailers. We see the enforced monotony of prison existence take its toll on some fellow prisoners, even as Fontaine works at instilling hope in others. When he discovers a possible weak point in his prison, he begins to plot his escape. Getting out of his 9' x 6' cell is only the beginning, though. There are patrols to dodge and interior and exterior walls to fly over. Over time, he collects all the materials and fashions all the tools he will need to overcome these obstacles, and through the movie we experience the time, effort, and risks involved. We live the weeks required to complete his work in secrecy. We feel the fear that rises in Fontaine when guards suddenly seem to take an extra interest in him, and when his fellow prisoners seem to resent him, and begin gossiping about him. We experience his growing hope as each day's careful work brings Fontaine just a little closer to freedom... But it's when all seems finally ready that fate and character begin to meddle with his well-laid plans... Perhaps imprisonment is succeeding in chipping away at his resolve, for once he has everything he needs, he hesitates, time and time again. On top of this second-guessing, he must deal with a new cellmate, a young man of questionable loyalty. Can he be trusted?

You'll have to watch the movie to find out. It is slow compared to the likes of ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ and Fox's PRISON BREAK, but its pace is deliberate, and in conjunction with the camera work executed in the tight spaces of the prison, serves to immerse us in Fontaine's bleak prison existence. Against this stark backdrop, every little act of resistance, every bit of dread of discovery or betrayal, and every look one prisoner gives another becomes that much more accented and powerful.

I really wanted to stay to catch PETITS FRERES, a Doillon film that tells a warped Snow White story about a tough 13 year old girl who falls in with a gang of boys in suburban Paris. This screening was going to be followed by a discussion led by the director, touching on the current rioting by youths in France, much of it begun in the suburbs shown in this film. Incredibly disappointing to miss this, but at the end of ESCAPED, I found myself beginning to have to fight the sandman to focus on the subtitles of the film. My recent early a.m. skewed waking hours (which continue tonight) are taking their toll on my darkened theater screen-reading stamina. I was certain that I would end up passing out within the first half hour of a second feature, so I decided to abort. I do plan on making up for it as best I can over the next couple days.

I'm supposed to hit WALLACE AND GROMMIT tomorrow afternoon, and thinking of catching PONETTE and RENDEZ-VOUS in the evening.

My official 'thon count so far:

1. HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, 11/11 @Capitol Theater in Arlington.
2. A MAN ESCAPED, 11/12 @Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square.

Keep on keepin on~