A Man Escaped [Blu-ray] - Classic WWII Prison Escape Movie - Perfect for Film Collectors & History Buffs

A Man Escaped is one of those films that improves with repeat viewings. Bresson makes a strange choice in omitting the opening chapter of the memoir the film is based on which deals with the hero's curiously distant emotional response to killing a collaborator, which does throw some light on the sudden apathy and inertia that paralyses him once he is on the brink of making his much-delayed escape, but in other respects it's a perfectly contained and executed movie.The performances are very strong (Bresson was still aiming for naturalistic performances at this time) and the Christian allegory - that we want redemption but instinctively back away from it - is not overstrained: although this time round I noticed a few more references to religion than I recalled, it's there if you want to see it but never at the cost of turning the movie into a sermon.The film has gone through various video, DVD and Blu-ray incarnations. New Yorker's source material for their deleted NTSC DVD is not especially good, but considering how bad most 35mm prints that go round the revival circuit are, it may well be a case of making the best of what material was available to them. Artificial Eye's UK Region 2 PAL DVD is a distinct improvement on New Yorker's version. Although it doesn't have the unsubtitled trailer included on the US release, it does have a good 54-minute Dutch documentary, The Road to Bresson, and superior picture quality. The French Blu-ray from Gaumont is very impressive, though the extras are unsubtitled - something rectified by Criterion's excellent edition on DVD and Region A-locked Blu-ray tha includes the trailer (subtitled this time), The Road to Bresson documentary, and documentary The Essence of Forms, episode of Cineastes du Notre Temps - Bresson Without a Trace, offering Bresson's fist on-camera interview, visual essay Functions of Film Sound and booklet.