- Au Hasard Balthazar
Among the great slate of programs currently running at the University of Chicago’s Doc Films is one titled “Prison Break!,” featuring films about convicts escaping from prison. As Anton Yu explains in his introduction to the series, “Due to the sheer number of them, prison escape dramas have almost become a genre unto themselves—and for good reason. At their heart, prison break films are tense, exciting, inspirational, and, often, just plain fun.” Upcoming titles include Cool Hand Luke, The Shawshank Redemption, and Chicken Run; this week’s selection is Robert Bresson’s seminal A Man Escaped, which is partially based on the director’s experiences as a prisoner during the Nazi occupation of France.
- L’Argent (1983) One of the great final films by any major director. This is probably Bresson’s most intimate work, particularly in the sense that it shows how human interaction forms a sort of invisible connective thread. Each of the director’s films has some sort of literary antecedent; Tolstoy presides over this one, so it has a suitably pessimistic vibe, but like any Bresson film, L’Argent doesn’t surmise simple psychological or social terms. The character emotions run too deep, and the narrative’s existential implications don’t offer any easy answers.
