Lyon 1943, Moncluc prison: Lieutenant Fontaine (Leterrier), a man of the Resistance sentenced to death, meticulously prepares his escape from Nazi prison. Inspired by an autobiographical article by André Devigny (who followed the shooting as a technical consultant), the film is preceded by a sign which reads: «This story is true. I'll tell you how it is, without ornaments>>. For his fourth feature film (the first without professional actors) Bresson reduces historical references to a minimum and concentrates his attention on the atmosphere and on man's metaphysical relationship with freedom: to do so he eliminates everything that appears superfluous to him, arriving at construct the film with a long series of close-ups and very close-ups of the protagonists' faces, but above all of the hands and objects with which Fontaine tries to prepare his escape (a spoon, a bedspring, the pieces of cloth that will form a rope ). Mozart's Mass in C minor counterpoints a succession of faded shots mixed with the real noises of footsteps or keys.
It is a true story which Lieutenant Devigny published in 1954 in the "Figaro Litéraire" An adventurous plot thus becomes for Robert Bresson (in his most creative moment) a meditation on life, human relationships, man's aspirations. There is more tension than in a Hitchcock thriller (moreover obtained with a language that is more bare , less melodramatic and could not be "spectacular").
It is a true story which Lieutenant Devigny published in 1954 in the "Figaro Litéraire" An adventurous plot thus becomes for Robert Bresson (in his most creative moment) a meditation on life, human relationships, man's aspirations. There is more tension than in a Hitchcock thriller (moreover obtained with a language that is more bare , less melodramatic and could not be "spectacular").