1943, Nazi-occupied France. 

A man is imprisoned. He will die here if he does nothing. So, he tries to escape. He uses his hands, his eyes, his mind, and his body. This prison break spiritual-drama gets faith.

Early on, a priest tells the man, “God will save you,” to which he responds, “only if he has help.” It’s a perfect response for the kind of faith this film believes in. Faith, in Bresson’s world, is not passive. It implies strenuous, hellbent action. 

Bresson originally wanted to call the film “Aide-toi” (“Help yourself”). By doing our part, salvation is made immanent. We work for it now, on earth. And when we do, a transcendent intervention unfolds on our behalf.

The story is so mundane in the best possible way. There’s nothing cinematic about this escape, but it believes in the tools of liberation: human agency, human bodies, human spirit. And by believing in these tools, it rises above and touches something divine.

One of the best spiritual retellings of The Myth of Sisyphus. We may be condemned to spend our days trying to conquer impossible tasks. But it’s in the trying, the attempting to escape our prisons, that we become.

This isn’t sentimental wisdom. Bresson, a survivor of the Resistance imprisoned by the Nazis during WWII, lived this. The film’s meta-narrative thus breathes life into these themes, gives them a spiritual verity. Makes faith real. It’s simply sublime.

Bresson Ranked