Stories about prison escape always arouse people's interest in reading or listening. The balance of power between prisoners and prison management is too great. It can be said that the prisoner is in a completely passive position. His personal freedom is strictly restricted. Within his limited range of activities, it is difficult to have the opportunity to accurately understand the architectural features of the prison and the environment outside the prison. The tools he has access to are extremely rare, and it is completely impossible to escape from prison without the help of any tools. The prison management is in full initiative. They stipulated the daily routine of the prisoners and knew almost everything about the prisoners' life in prison. As long as they are willing, a little favor may destroy the unity between the prisoners. Every step of a prisoner's escape is in danger that may be perceived by the prison management, and it is also a moment of tension for readers or listeners: every attempt to escape may be the last attempt. The success of escape means that the inferior prisoner has defeated the superior prison management. With personal courage, patience and wisdom, as well as the indispensable unity between the prisoners, the prisoners escaped under the noses of the guards and warden. How the weak and the strong defeat the strong and the weak, as a story, often has eternal charm.
Bresson’s style is called minimalism. He uses a camera just like a good writer uses a pen, cherishing ink like gold. Therefore, there is nothing superfluous in his lens. In his lens, actors often can only show a certain part of their body, such as hands or feet. If movies generally show the director’s imagination to the audience, Bresson’s movies are extraordinary. Under his lens, the audience must actively mobilize their imagination. His shots seem to be words, not to kill the imagination of the audience, but to stimulate the imagination of the audience. Bresson’s films often involve criminal activities, but his shots rarely show the specific process of violence, and often only show the beginning and end of violence. For example, to show the plot of a murder in a house, he often only uses two shots to show it: the murderer enters the house. The murderer walked out of the room covered in blood. Therefore, people who are accustomed to passive viewing may not like Bresson.
In the case of being so parsimonious about the camera, Bresson's performance of the sound has been brought to the extreme, especially this "Death Prison Escape". Due to the limited space for prisoners to carry out free activities, in many cases they can only judge things by hearing. Therefore, in the film, those ambient sounds that are often overlooked in movie viewing become the main body. Some of these sounds are very weak, so weak that they are easy to be ignored if you don’t pay attention to listening or watching the movie. For example, the sound of knocking on the wall and coughing of the prisoners transmitting signals, the footsteps of the guards patrolling, and the guards using the keys to stroke the stairs. The sound of the iron pillars of the escalator...some of them are very loud. It is the sound of prisoners being shot in prison, the sound of the protagonist digging the door... To
put it aside, Bresson’s movies often have Catholic themes, but this is a prison escape theme. It seems that there are not many things that can be related to religion. However, if you think about it carefully, you can still connect with religion. The protagonist in the film is like Christ, and the other prisoners are like all living beings. The confinement of prisoners in prison life is like the confinement of secular life to people. All living beings do not believe that there is a heaven besides worldly life. I do not believe that I can get rid of the pain of worldly life and enter the eternal and happy kingdom of heaven. Just as a prisoner does not believe that he can escape the prison and regain his freedom. Only Christ does not lose faith in the kingdom of heaven, just as only the protagonist does not lose his enthusiasm for freedom. The protagonist preached the method of escape among the prisoners, just as Christ preached among the people. Finally, the protagonist guides the young people in the cell to escape from prison, just as Christ guides the disciples to practice together.
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