Genre: Prisoner of War drama Robert Bresson is rightly considered one of the godfathers of the French New Wave and his 1956 classic A Man Escaped exemplifies his masterful control of mood and atmosphere, telling the tale of a member of the French Resistance as he plans and carries out an escape from his Nazi captors. A Man Escaped is deceptively simplistic in its set up - Fontaine (played by François Leterrier) weighs up the dynamics of his imprisonment and patiently - and meticulously - forms a plan of escape. There is little more to the film in terms of synopsis beyond this, but it is Bresson's attention to detail coupled with the measured pacing of each sequence which lends the film its potency. Less about the escape itself than the manner in which men endure in the face of fate, it is the close scrutiny of Fontaine's predicament - bereft of fancy camera moves, flashy editing and cinematic gimmickry - which draws the audience into his world. Fontaine's imprisonment and escape becomes something much larger than the action on screen - a metaphor for spiritual salvation alluded to in the Mozart music which occasionally punctuates the soundtrack. Roger Ebert justifiably described A Man Escaped as "a lesson in the cinema" and Bresson stands as one of the true masters, where nothing is superfluous and everything is loaded with deeper meaning. While some contemporary audiences may find his films difficult to watch (the editing pace is certainly "boring" by conventional Hollywood standards), those who have the patience to approach cinema from his unique perspective will find it infinitely rewarding. See also: The Great Escape
