The Holdover a Pleasant Film, but not Oscar Worthy

 

 

The Holdovers (2023)

Directed by Alexander Payne

Focus Features, 133 minutes, R (F-bombs, drug use, drinking, and “nudity”)

★★★

 

The Holdovers is a feel-good film. It has been compared to It’s a Wonderful Life for it fairy tale transformations and its message that virtue trumps material success. Let me be upfront about it. I liked it, but I didn’t love it, even though it’s about a teacher. I jotted down my ten favorite teacher movies–from Conrack and Dead Poets Society to Stand and Deliver and Whiplash–and nothing about The Holdovers tempted me to alter my list.

 

It follows classics professor Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) from the final days of the 1970 fall semester to the end of Christmas break. Hunham is old school, the sort whose C- is the equivalent of an A- from anyone else. He’s grumpy, stern, exudes a strange body odor, has a lazy eye, and is absolutely intractable about his standards. Hunham once went to Barton and he has ideas about what a “Barton man” should be, hence he’s  just flunked the son of a U.S. Senator and major donor. Barton is a prestigious New England private school–fictional though much of it was filmed at Northfield Mt. Hermon and Deerfield academies–but times have changed and Hunham has not. He especially has it out for students Teddy Koutnze, a rich airheaded punk, and Dominic Sessa (Angus Tully), who is bright, but also arrogant and disrespectful.

 

As a not-so-veiled put-down, Headmaster Hardy Woodrup, a horse’s patootie, sticks Hunham with “holdover” duty; that is, supervision of students who have nowhere to go during the break. At the last minute, Tully becomes one of them and is not at all happy that Hunham expects them to study during the break. The campus is fairly remote, the town has limited options for a teen such as Tully–Shelburne Falls is the stand-in–and students young and old feel like prisoners. One by one the students get reprieves until just one is left: Tully. That leaves him, Hunham, Joy , campus cook Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Randolph), and African American janitor Danny.  

 

One reviewer called The Holdovers “diagrammatic,” meaning its plot draws on a host of clichés, devices, and pieces of other films that define the hard teacher with secrets/young man in need of growing up genre. That strikes me as fair commentary. In other words, director Alexander Payne opted to play things safe. The chaotic 1970s, for instance, make little more than a drive-by appearance beyond Mary’s loss of her son in the Vietnam War. You can tick off the film’s sugarcoated situations: teen rebellion, reluctant bonding between Hunham and Tully, Hunham as mentor, revelations of why teacher and student are socially gauche, psychological growth, and full-scale borrowing from the 1939 classic Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

 

If it sounds like I’m being Hunham-hard on the film it’s because it was predictable, but could have been much more. The problems lie with David Hemingson’s script not with its top-flight acting. Paul Giamatti is a vastly underrated actor and has been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for The Holdovers. The film is also up for Best Picture, Hemingson for Best Original Screenplay, and Ms. Randolph is the odds-on favorite to win for Best Supporting Actress. It would be a shame, though, if any of them won. To put it bluntly, The Holdovers lacks enough gravitas to be feted. (Odds are certainly against it as Best Picture, as Payne wasn’t nominated for Best Director. It happens, but it’s rare a film wins but its director isn’t up for an award.)

 

The very R rating of The Holdovers seems a contrivance to give it more heft than it has. It rests on a torrent of F-bombs, drug use (pot and lithium–what next, Ibuprofen?), and “nudity,” an ancient Greek vase and an over-the shoulder peek inside a “skin” magazine. Dear MPAA: F-bombs are as common as lottery tickets, pot is legal most places, lithium is a prescription drug, and the statute of limitations for ancient Greek nudity passed 3,000 years ago.

 

The Holdovers is a perfectly good little movie that will give most viewers a case of the warm fuzzies, its semi-sad ending notwithstanding. Enjoy it for what it is: a decent night on the sofa that won’t tax your brain very much. I hope that someday Paul Giamatti lands a role that will yield an Oscar. But not for The Holdovers.

 

Rob Weir

Ordet: An Unusal Film

 

 

 

Ordet (1955, 1957 in North America)

Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer

Dreyer A/S, 120 minutes, not rated.

In Danish with subtitles

★★★ ½

 

Carl Theodor Dreyer (1888-1968) is considered one of the greatest directors of all time. Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in a theater. Likewise, Ordet has been cited by Britain’s Sight & Sound as among the top 20 films in cinema history, an assessment shared by those who awarded it a Golden Lion in Venice in 1955. I rate it lower because it takes a certain kind of viewer to appreciate it.

 

Ordet is based upon a 1932 play by Kaj Munk, a Lutheran pastor martyred during World War II. Religion is at the center of Ordet, which takes place in Denmark during 1925. The widower Morten Borgen is a prosperous farmer and the father of three sons. In his mind, though, his greatest achievement was bringing faith to what had hitherto been the darkness of Jutland. His brand of Lutheranism is stern, but joyful. His eldest son Mikkel has lost his faith, though he is married to the ebullient and very pregnant Inger. Part of Mikkel’s faith crisis is that Inger has given him two daughters, but no son.

 

To make that sound less outrageous, farm families depended upon male heirs to keep even rich farms going. The youngest son Anders is unmarried and, though he’d like to wed Anne Petersen, neither father will agree to the match. Her father,  Peter (Enjer Federspiel)* belongs to the Inner Mission sect, a very austere and sin-focused form of Lutheranism. He and Morten see each other as apostates.

 

To say that the middle son Johannes (is unlikely to produce an heir is an understatement. He was once a promising student, but studied Søren Kierkegaard so intensely that he underwent an unusual conversion; he believes that he is Jesus Christ, preaches atop empty hillsides, and drives other male Borgens crazy. Most of the villagers would attest he is crazy. A word: Kierkegaard is among the most difficult philosophers to study. He was an existentialist who believed in free will. Existentialism is sometimes called living like a saint without God, but Kierkegaard was a mystic who emphasized Christian love and believed that God could only be intuited. What, exactly, that means has baffled many. Morten blames Kierkegaard for Johannes’ troubled mind. Now you know why I said not every viewer will relate to Ordet.

 

Johannes–Latin for John­–plays another role. “Ordet” is Danish for “The Word.” The New Testament Gospel of John opens: “In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” There is a new pastor in the village who thinks Johannes is mentally ill, as does the local doctor. Though the first is a believer and the latter a man of science, each agrees that the age of miracles is over. I will say no more about what happens other than it will challenge whatever you think or believe.

 

Here's how I unpack the characters, though I know little of Kaj Munk mine might not have been his intention. I’m pretty sure that Morten and Peter symbolize that theological debates are dead ends when they depart from the essence of faith and when, in Kierkegaardian terms, they seek to “prove” the unknowable. The doctor, pastor, and Mikkel seem to represent materialists who doubt anything they cannot observe. Johannes is tougher, but I think Munk and Dreyer are playing off the age-old question of whether anyone would recognize a messiah if one appeared amidst them.

 

I’m on safer ground in saying that the black and white cinematography of Henning Bendtsen is stunning, especially his empty expanses, grey skies, and grasses blown by seaside breezes, though all of Bendtsen’s camera work enhances moments of moodiness, melancholia, and astonishment. Dreyer used long takes and Bendtsen made each look like a painting. I should note that the acting is more mannered, expressionistic, and poetic than realistic. Was this was deliberate, stylistic, or because Dreyer first made films in the gesticulating silent era?** Add it to the list of mysteries. Ordet is better contemplated than explained.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

* You will not know the actors. I mention Federspeil because he too was a Danish film director.

** Thanks to friends Chris, Ian, and Kiki for those thoughts.

On View at Mt. Holyoke and Amherst College

 

Lewis Hine

 

The Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts has numerous colleges and universities with art museums. As befits educational institutions, many of the exhibits change–for good or ill.

 

Mount Holyoke College Art Museum is celebrating its 150^th anniversary through May 25 with an exhibit titled Relaunch Laboratory. It showcases work that challenges old conventions. As you’ve probably noticed, Eurocentrism and colonialism have come under critical scrutiny, as have elitist perspectives on “fine” art. This includes both creative people in the West who find beauty in street perspectives and those from non-Western cultures whose work collapses outmoded ideas that anything “functional” is, at best, craft. 

 

Berenice Abbott

 

Thomas Hart Benton

 

Mt. Holyoke was ahead of the curve in collecting photography and recognizing how it tells otherwise forgotten tales. One such shutterbug was Lewis Hine, who fancied himself a reformer with a camera. His shot of a shirtless worker inside Holyoke’s Paragon Rubber Company is dynamic, but gritty. You can almost feel the heat and smell the raw rubber and well-worn machines. You can also imagine how many generations of young men toiled just like the central figure. Likewise, there’s nothing intrinsically beautiful about a hardware story captured by the lens of Berenice Abbott in 1938. Yet somehow it’s hard to look away from this potpourri of plebeian utilitarianism. Work is celebrated on heroic scale by a 1930s work by muralist Thomas Hart Benton. You might notice that some are working and some are “supervising” or that figures on the right seem imperiled. 

 

Ismael Randall Weeks

 

Dancing Ganesha

 

Peruvian artist Ishmael Randall Weeks challenges how we see in a work titled Código atemporal, which means “timeless code.” At first it’s little more than brick dust, cement, dirt, and black quartz placed upon a beige background. Yet it too invites you to look at its arrangement and imagine those whose hands touched the materials. Form meets function in a dance mask from Sierra Leone created in the 20^th century to evoke older rituals. Speaking of which, how about the timelessness of Ganesha who is still revered in both Hinduism and Buddhism. This one dates from either the 9^th or 10^th century. If you carefully on the bottom right you’ll see a mouse under Ganesha’s foot. Mice represent the need to control ego. Maybe we should send a box of them to Congress! 

 

El Anasui

Vanesa German

 

I was enthralled by Bird from Ghana’s El Anasui because it is made of wood and he is an artist I associate with giant metal “curtains” made from discarded liquor bottle bands. I was also taken by a work from African American sculptor Vanesa German. Her The Father Shoe has nails and shimmery metal, each with wings. One for is for coming and other for going. 

 

Charmion von Wiegand

 Charmion von Wiegand asks a question we should always consider. Her 1957 work titled 42^nd Street New York City is lines and color blocks. Do we need anything else to evoke a bird’s eye view of a city throughway?

 

 

I wish I felt as charitable about work currently on view at the Mead Art Gallery of Amherst College. The most interesting thing you can there at present are galleries being readied for an exhibit of global indigenous peoples.

 

Current exhibitions titled Trópico es Politico: Caribbean Art Under the Visitor Economy Regime and Like a Slow Walk with Trees: Alicia Grullón evoke adjectives such as obvious, preachy, and boring. 

 

 The first has juxtapositions of how people live in places such as Panama and various Caribbean islands versus visitor pitches. Footage of tourist advertisements are of pristine playgrounds inhabited by rich jetsetters–casinos, white beaches, golf courses…. As you know, that’s not how it is on the ground. Key phrase: As you know. It’s the kind of thing used to drive home the built-in imbalances of colonialism and then move on to discussion. Instead of driving home, the exhibit takes backroads and ends up where it started.

 

This is even more blatant and dull in Like a Slow Walk with Trees. Thesis: Trees are good, people are bad. In case you don’t get that, cosplay figures hold up signs or pose with props that tell you what you are supposed to conclude.

 

Agitprop art delivers messages, but the most effective invites dialogue rather than delivering a sermon. Once dogma enters the scene, dialogue dies and we are left with just two options: acknowledge our sins or walk away. The latter is unfortunate but the first is a dead end. Forced conversions seldom work. Add unproductive to the list of adjectives for these exhibits.

 

Rob Weir

 

Try This Older Peter May Mystery

 

 

 

The Man With No Face (1981/2019)

By Peter May

Quercus, 406 pages

★★★

 

I quite enjoy the thrillers and mysteries from Scottish novelist Peter May. The Man With No Face was an early effort that was reprinted after May gained renown as a British television writer, took the dosh, and then returned to fulltime writing. His Lewis trilogy is a personal favorite. The Man With No Face isn’t up to that standard, but it’s still a good read.

 

The centerpiece of this murder mystery is Neil Bannerman, a journalist with the Edinburgh Post. Bannerman is a fine reporter, but he’s also jaded, tart of tongue, and all-round pain in the keister. Not surprisingly, he lives alone. He is especially cynical of Tait, an editor who is really a cost-cutting hatchet man. Tait would love to get rid of Bannerman, but he’s too good to dump without a really good reason.

 

Instead, Tait packs Bannerman off to Brussels to cover a big EEC (European Economic Community) conference which, for an investigative reporter like Bannerman, is akin being assigned to covering local school board meetings. He encounters a group of smug embedded reporters who turn in stories that differ little from press releases and are content to treat their gravy gig as if they are at Club Med on an expense account. It takes Bannerman less than a day to offend virtually every reporter in Brussels. That includes his contact Tim Slater in whose apartment he is staying.

 

Slater is in tight with British Cabinet minister Robert Gryffe. Bannerman doesn’t care for him much either, but things get much more interesting when both Slater and Gryffe are found dead in the latter’s townhouse. Local police investigate and conclude the two shot each other during a quarrel. You don’t have to be as dogged as Bannerman to doubt that conclusion. As it transpires, there was a hidden witness to the dual slayings, Gryffe’s severely autistic young daughter Tania. She doesn’t speak, but she’s a precocious artist who drew the incident. The problem with her sketch is that the man who isn’t one of the victims has no discernible face.

 

Bannerman’s investigations will take him down several unexpected paths, not the least of which is that Tania seems at ease with Neil, whereas she goes into a shell or screams when she is in the company of anyone of than her (now-dead) father and her nanny/caregiver Sally. About Sally, how is it that a confirmed misanthrope like Neil finds himself increasingly attracted to her or feeling protective of Tania? At least he can exercise his bile toward Platt, once a promising reporter but now a loser who holds his tongue to scrounge background assignments from other derisive reporters.

 

A lot happens, not the least of which is that an amoral assassin named Kale would like to plant both Neil and Tania. But for whom is he a contract killer? That involves following leads that might yield Bannerman a major scoop. Every crumb he follows yields another layer of complexity. He comes to expect that a reclusive but respected Swiss entrepreneur René Jansen is too good to be true. Eventually he will enter a world of deadly and dirty politics in which even the men in shadows have an overlord.

 

Okay, so maybe we too jaded these days to be shocked by the idea that power, politics, and crime might be linked, but by having a lot of threads in need of being tied together, May’s 1981 plot holds up well. I’ll leave it to you to decide how well the twists involving Kale and Tania ring true. Younger readers will just have to trust me when I say that once upon a time there really were crusading journalists who wrote for pulped products called newspapers. Oh wait, was that cynical?

 

Rob Weir

 

 

Macbeth: The Film (It will save you time)

 

 

 

 

Macbeth (2015)

Directed by Justin Kurzel

StudioCanal, 113 minutes, R (violence, brief sexuality)

★★★★

 

I’ve noted this before. Though it horrifies several of my friends and relatives, Shakespeare doesn’t make my heart sing. I love all things Scottish, but I recall a three-hour plus production of Macbeth that was so turgid it made me want to sneak out the back and grab a plate of haggis. I was thus recently surprised to enjoy the 2015 movie version of Macbeth. I’m sure a lot of that had to do with the fact that director Justin Kurzel pared it down to under two hours.

 

It also had plenty to do with Michael Fassbinder in the title role. He was so intense that he made me believe in what were arguably overly abrupt transitions in his moods and motives. (Hey, you’ve got cut somewhere!) I was also surprised that French actress Marion Cotillard pulled off Lady Macbeth. Her English was very good and she was excellent as a manipulative temptress and villainess.

 

For those who don’t know, Macbeth is set in 11^th century Scotland. Kurzel doesn’t have to do much more than aim his camera at the rugged hills and moors of the Isle of Skye to convey the wildness and primitive conditions of the day. His characters brave the wet, the mud, the blood, the battle scars, and the close-to-the-margins living that marked Scotland at the tail end of what is sometimes labeled the Dark Ages. It’s not a particularly accurate term, though it suggests the semi-tribal nature of authority. In theory, Duncan (David Thewlis) is King of the Scots, but he serves by nature of having defeated a pretender and only so long as he can keep ambitious thanes (land-grant nobles) at bay.

 

Macbeth is known for the role of its three witches accompanied by a small girl akin to Greek oracles who utter vague prophecies. Courtesy of Macbeth’s valor in a battle in which he loses his son, Duncan has just defeated a recent challenger and executes the old Thane of Cawdor for his treasonous alliance with Norsemen. Duncan bestows the title of Cawdor upon Macbeth. The latter grows troubled, though, by the witches’ proclamation that Macbeth will be king and his friend Banquo (Paddy Considine) the father of kings plural. The implication is that Macbeth’s line will not inherit the throne.

 

That and some steamy seduction are all that Lady Macbeth needs to manipulate her husband into killing Duncan and assuming the throne. Pro tip: If you’re going to kill a king, don’t make Macduff (Sean Harris), the powerful Thane of Fife suspect you, or allow the king’s eldest son Malcolm (Jack Raynor) to slip off to England to raise an army. Before you know it, you have to kill a lot of people, including Macduff’s entire family and, eventually, send assassins competent enough to dispatch your old friend Banquo, the Thane of Lochaber, but not swift enough to keep his son Fleance from fleeing.

 

Things like that can drive you crazy and there’s nothing like a mad king to bring out the long swords. Lady Macbeth tries to keep her husband focused but when she too starts to lose her royal marbles, you can bet the pewter that things won’t go well. Plus, those bloody witches insist on uttering non-specific prophecies that provide no solace whatsoever. There three twists toward the end before none of Lady Macbeth’s damned spots will come out. There’s never a stain stick when you need one.

 

Okay, I’m being cheeky. I really did like this production. It had the right balance of skilled theatre actors­–­Considine, Elizabeth Debicki (Lady Macduff), David Hayman (Lord Lennox)–and film/TV stars such as Cotillard, Fassbinder, Sean Harris, and Reynor to mix both dignity and thrills into the production. To be sure, it doesn’t have the skillful theatrics of the Laurence Olivier/Vivien Leigh production, but even those who’ve never seen Macbeth know the famed soliloquys, hence Fassbinder and Cotillard don’t have to match anyone else to be perfectly competent at delivering them. Kurzel’s use of Northumberland’s Bamburgh Castle adds another dose of sparseness to a play that, at heart, is about ambition, murder, and lust for power for rather thin gain. Did I mention it’s only 113 minutes?

 

Rob Weir

Oppenheimer Lives Up to the Hype

 

 

Oppenheimer (2023)

Directed by Christopher Nolan

Universal Pictures, 180 minutes, R (nudity, adult situations, language)

★★★★★

 

Critic Richard Roeper called Oppenheimer “one of the best movies of the century.” The hype is justified. Director Christopher Nolan has made a film of epic proportions, social significance, and one so expertly paced that three hours race by.

 

J. Robert “Oppie” Oppenheimer (1904-67), has been called “the father of the atomic bomb,” which is accurate and ironic for his role in assembling the greatest scientific minds of his generation, though they were often like unruly children in need of cajolement and discipline. Not to mention Oppie’s own misgivings when his horrible weapon became a pawn in the arms race, not an instrument of world peace.

 

Herding massive egos wasn’t easy. Oppenheimer had id issues of his own and was probably on the high-functioning end of the autism scale. Irish actor Cillian Murphy is letter-perfect in depicting him as overly attuned to sound and light, literal, insensitive to others, and convinced of the rectitude of his every decision. It didn’t help that he had skeletons in his closet, or that many who worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the A-Bomb fell outside the category of well-adjusted. Brigadier General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), the military director of the project, found it difficult to switch between his command duties and political pressure; Rear Admiral Lewis Straus (Robert Downey, Jr.) was a schemer; and each of the scientists were brilliant but temperamental: Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh), David Hill (Rami Malek), Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), Giovanni Lomantz (Josh Zuckerman), Izzy Rabi (David Kumholtz), Edward Teller (Bernie Safdie)… Hans Bethe, Enrico Fermi, Kurt Gödel, Werner Heisenberg, Roger Robb, Leo Szilard, and snake-in-the-grass Klaus Fuchs.

 

Oppenheimer was not a safe choice for the project. In addition to his personal quirks, he had red flag friends in several senses of the word. It was legal to join the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in the 1930s and the Soviet Union (USSR) was allied with the U.S. during World War II, but those in high places distrusted Josef Stalin, the USSR, and American communists. Oppenheimer probably never joined the CPUSA, but his brother Frank did (Dylan Arnold), as did Oppie's friend Hakan Chevalier (Jefferson Hill), and Oppie’s longtime lover Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh). Oppie wasn’t good with people, but he did like sex. He continued dalliances with Tatlock and another scientist’s wife after he married Kitty (Emily Blunt), who was married three previous times, once to a CPUSA member.  

 

In other words, Oppenheimer’s life was as messy as the physics theories that tortured his mind. Complicated individuals plus an enormously complicated project equals a large cast. If your grasp of the history of physics is weak, you could get lost in trying to keep track of who’s who in Oppenheimer. My advice is don’t try. The film eventually boils down to the competing objectives of three people: Oppenheimer, Groves, and the oily Straus. All you need know is that everyone else in the film–including humorless intelligence officers–align themselves according to their own agendas, loyalties, and grudges. Know also that what was tolerated during the war changed dramatically when the threat of Nazism gave way to a postwar Red Scare. Oppenheimer was among those who went from hero to victim. 

 

Director Christopher Nolan signals the shift by subtly dividing Oppenheimer into two chapters: Fission and Fusion. The atomic bomb was a fission weapon that split atoms into two pieces. Metaphorically the race for an A-bomb meant winning or losing the war. Fusion bombs such as the more powerful hydrogen bomb “fuse” two atoms to create a third. Think Oppie (science), Groves (military), and Straus (political ambition).

 

Murphy and Downey Jr. have been nominated for Best Actor and Supporting Actor Oscars respectively. They are deserving choices. I’m less enthusiastic about Emily Blunt for Best Supporting Actress, but not because of her acting. Oppenheimer violates the Bechdel Rule with its aggressively male story line. Only Florence Pugh is less than an appendage to the men and would be a better choice to be honored.

 

Don’t cavalierly dismiss Oppenheimer as sexist. Blunt’s performance was in accordance with gender roles of the time period. Nolan’s film is masterful for capturing the social milieu and for its innovative use of 65 mm IMAX and large-format cameras. Oppie left a contestable legacy that Nolan incisively captures.

 

Rob Weir

 

P.S.  See if you recognize who plays President Truman!

A Man Escaped a Masterpiece

 

 

A Man Escaped or The Wind Blows Where It Listeth (1956)

Directed by Robert Bresson

Gaumont Film Company, 99 minutes, not-rated

★★★★★

 

If you’ve ever wondered why I watch a lot of classic movies, A Man Escaped is your answer. The late Roger Ebert declared it “like a lesson in the cinema” and the British magazine Sight and Sound listed in among the top 100 films of all time. That’s extraordinary praise for a film whose “action” occurs in a very short period of time.

 

Part of reputation of A Man Escaped rests upon the amazing use of light by director Robert Bresson. He has been called a “religious” director, though he labeled himself a “Christian atheist.” For what it’s worth, the film’s alternative title comes from the New Testament Gospel of John and one of the minor characters is a pastor. Bresson, who was once a photographer–not to be confused with Henri-Cartier Bresson–masterfully mixed darkness with slanted beams of light that illuminate in numerus meanings of that term. He is considered a pre-New Wave director, but A Man Escaped could be a film noir offering were it not a World War II thriller. Bresson’s camerawork dazzles. There are lots of verticals, horizontals, and acute angles, but Bresson seldom used wide angle lenses and preferred close shots. Moreover, Bresson often worked with non-trained actors. That allowed him to draw viewers into the cinematic experience rather than merely stargazing. All of these things come into play in A Man Escaped, which in many ways is a psychological drama enhanced by omniscient voiceovers. It is based on French Resistance fighter André Devigny and is in French with subtitles, but you need not worry: Dialogue is sparse as it takes place inside a Nazi-run prison where talking is verboten.

 

In the opening scene we do not yet know why Lt. Fontaine (François Leterrier) has been arrested by the Gestapo or why he isn’t handcuffed, but he makes his first escape attempt by trying to bolt the vehicle as it drives along a street in occupied Lyons. All that comes of that is a blood-covered entrance to prison on a stretcher. What unfolds next is a portrait of life on the inside: coded tapping on walls, furtive passing of notes, the sounds of machinegun executions, stolen conversation while washing or walking in circles for “exercise,” and the daily grind of carrying two buckets each morning: one to dump human waste and one for water. Unless an approved package comes, prisoners wear the same clothing every day–a blood-stained shirt in Fontaine’s case.

 

Prisoners are “interrogated” on a regular basis, though the files over which Nazi officials pore predetermines what their sentences will be, death in Fontaine’s case. What the Nazis have not discovered is that Fontaine is carefully planning his escape. In snippets of conversation and nighttime observations through peep holes, his fellow prisoners first think he’s deluded but come to think he might pull it off, especially after he fashions a stolen spoon that he sharpens to allow him to prise a few boards from his cell door. You’ll have to watch to see how he hides this from the guards. Ditto how he makes enough rope for the walls he would have to scale.

 

A complication arises. It’s 1943 and enough new prisoners arrive that it is necessary to double up in the small cells. His new roommate is 18-year-old François Jost. Rumors abound that some of the new arrivals, including Jost, are actually Nazi spies. Fontaine, though, has just two choices: convince Jost to escape with him or stay put and face a firing squad. Talk about your Hobbesian choices.

 

Do either of them survive? I’m not telling! I will say that seldom has such an interiorized and slow-paced film been so fraught with tension. Everything about A Man Escape exudes Bresson’s genius, from its emotion-delivering camera work to its stripped-to-the-bones script. Numerous critics noted the ways in which Bresson discarded everything he did not need. It reminded me of times in which I have an amazing meal with few ingredients. How are such things possible? Observe and learn.

 

Rob Weir