World Famous Comics: Jean Keraudy Le Trou - Criterion Collection
Jean Keraudy Le Trou - Criterion Collection
Starring: André Bervil, Jean Keraudy, Michel Constantin, Philippe Leroy, Raymond Meunier Directed By: Jacques Becker Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Audience Rating: Unrated Binding: DVD Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Criterion Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: October 16, 2001 Running Time: 132 minutes Theatrical Release Date: 1960
Description: In a Paris prison cell, five inmates use every ounce of their tenacity and ingenuity in an elaborate attempt to tunnel to freedom. Based on the novel by José Giovanni, Jacques Becker's Le Trou (The Hole) balances lyrical humanism with a tense, unshakable air of imminent danger.
The Hole Jacques Becker's LE TROU is the most detailed prison escape movie you'll ever see.
Because it was made in France in 1960 LE TROU is blessed with a few unique features - some of the prominent actors are amateurs, including Jean Keraudy, who was involved in the 1947 prison break this film depicts. There's no musical scoring of any type. The film is shot in black-and-white, with muted dramatics - the prison officials, guards and wardens, are actually nice enough people. So this is no exposé of harsh prison conditions, hardened criminals brutalized by hardened guards. Four prisoners have planned and are about to undertake a prison break. Young Claude Gaspar is suddenly thrown into their cell, and the four have to alter their plans to accommodate their new cellmate. Do they include him in their plans? Can they trust him?
Ultimately the second question proves to be the more important one. Before that question plays out to its final conclusion, though, LE TROU spends nearly two hours with the men as they laboriously, and I mean laboriously, chisel, pound, file and scrape their way through one barrier after another. First to go is a small, hidden corner of the floor in their cell, and the movie watches every blow of the improvised hammer as the thick concrete is finally broken into a hole large enough for a man to squeeze through. In most prison break movies you crack one hole and move on, but in this one it's just the beginning. Finally, the men must find the sewer, somewhere beneath the prison's cellar, and break their way out of whatever barrier they find when they reach it.
There's an understated, unforced feel to LE TROU. With its obsessive attention to detail, lack of false dramatics, and muted performances this doesn't feel so much like a docudrama as a true reenactment of events. Because the movie spends so much time over the prisoners' shoulders as they slowly chip and file their way to freedom we become wrapped up with their success. Even though they're criminals, and the movie expends little energy trying to prove they're innocent, or that they don't deserve the long prison terms they all face, it's hard not to become engaged with their quest for freedom and root for their success. If you're looking for a fast paced, violent prison movie LE TROU is not a good pick, but if you're willing to stay with a deliberately paced film this movie is a winner.
A spare, superbly detailed account of a prison escape doomed to failure... Becker's interest lies, not in the misery of prison life, but in the unspoken camaraderie and mutual respect that grow between the men as they slowly tunnel their way towards freedom... The setting is claustrophobic but the director's unsentimental observations - he likened himself to an entomologist - grow into a final statement of his enduring faith in human love and dignity...
All too often, Jacques Becker has been regarded as little more than an efficient craftsman... However, his excellence with actors, his preference for ordinary characters and plausible stories, and his continuing fascination with the themes of friendship, loyalty and betrayal mark him as a deeply appealing director...
Becker died only two weeks after completing his film... Compared to many of his contemporaries, Jacque Becker is widely underrated... It is quite probably his very strengths - an elegant if unassertive visual style, an interest in characters rather than plot - that have brought about his critical neglect...
An excellent film, with no melodrama, of five men in a French prison determined to break out...and much more than that To say this is the story of an attempted prison break-out does absolutely no justice to Le Trou, one of the great, subtle films of prison and men working together. Four men share a small cell in France's Santé Prison. There is Roland (Jean Keraudy), accepted by the others as their leader, a taciturn man who plans; Manu (Philippe Leroy), thoughtful but not one to let things slide by; Monseigneur (Raymond Meunier), more easy-going than the others; and Geo (Michel Constantin), who likes to prod and can use his fists. They all are tough men. Each is facing at least ten years in prison. Suddenly placed in their cell is the young Claude Gaspar (Marc Michel), something of an innocent who is charged with attempting to murder his wife. The four men now have a problem. Do they bring Gaspar into their secret? They plan to escape by digging through the concrete floor of their cell and into a sewer outlet, then through the dank basements of the prison, through another sewer line and out onto the streets. They have been planning this job meticulously and now are just about to start. They have no choice, so they bring Claude in. He agrees.
For the next two hours we watch these men, whose lives are controlled by the prison guards, hammer and tear through every obstacle they meet. They have to feign sleep and create dummies for the night-time prison checks. They make tools and a key, even a sand timer to tell time by. All the while they take turns pounding their way through stone walls and concrete floors. Becker's camera makes sure we see that the actors themselves are doing this brutal, grunting work. During all this punishing labor we begin to suspect that something isn't right. On one level, we know this is a movie and there can't be a simple, happy ending. But we also start noticing things. Someone may ask a question that seems unnecessary. Someone forgets a jacket and turns back to get it. It's apparent that Claude Garspar hasn't reached the same level of trust within the group that the other four have, but is this significant? All the while the clock is ticking and the men have no time; they must break through and get out before they are discovered.
I think the power of this film rests in two areas. First, there are no moral targets set up for us by the director and writer. There are no brutal guards and no brutal prisoners, just men doing what they are paid to do or told to do. In other words, there is no prison melodrama. Second, the movie seems to move at the pace of the five men. They have to keep going and we have to keep up with them. We see how they plan, how they improvise, how they do things. We also see how they have to live together in a small cell, brushing their teeth, urinating in an open toilet, being shaved in the hallway, sharing food packages and hunks of prison bread, undergoing cell searches with no warnings. It helps a great deal that Becker did not cast professional actors. We don't know these men, there's no film history, only what they do and say right now. The ending is not particularly bleak, unless you're a student of human nature, but because we've come to know these men it packs an emotional wallop.
The film was based on an attempted prison escape in France in 1947. Jean Keraudy, who plays Roland Darbant, was one of the prisoners who participated. After his release he earned his living as an auto mechanic. This is the only movie he ever made. Two of the other men who attempted the escape with him were hired by Becker as consultants. Much of the film was shot in the Santé Prison. This was Jacques Becker's last movie. The director of Casque d'Or and Touchez pas au Grisbi died of a heart attack two weeks after completing the film.
The Criterion DVD transfer is excellent. There are no extras. The DVD case contains an informative printed insert.
What a film! You maybe have not heard of French director Jacques Becker (he gets surprisingly little attention) - but if you see this movie you will understand immediateley why he ranks beside Bresson, Melville, and indeed Renoir (whom he worked with) - as one of the most polished and engaging of all French film makers. The film is an escape film - but unlike any other escape film - simply because of the way Becker is able to methodically connect us with the characters of the film - the ending of the film is a complete surprise - which may remind you of Henri Georges Clouzot's surprise endings!
Believe the glowing reviews here I thought I had seen (or been aware of) every great film made. Then I saw THE HOLE.
If you love WAGES OF FEAR, you'll love LE TROU.
Comparing this masterpiece to other escape movies like THE GREAT ESCAPE (yes, Bresson's is an exception) is like comparing TAXI DRIVER to MANIAC COP 3 (Maltin,...).
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