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Le Trou (1960, Fr.) (aka The Hole, or The Night
Watch)
In Jacques Becker's suspenseful, well-crafted, realistic
(mostly shot in real-time) and dramatic crime thriller (his last
film) about a prison escape, based upon a true-life event in 1947
when five prison inmates escaped from France's La Santé Prison:
- the story (three days in duration) was told in flashback
- the intricate procedural plan of four long-term, hardened cellmates
in La Sante Prison to escape, one of whom was Roland Darban (stage-named
Jean Keraudy, the narrator, and one of the original prison escapees)
- the ingenious improvisation of tools (a periscope
made of a toothbrush, twine and mirror, or a makeshift hammer) and
the prisoners' single-mindedness to construct an escape tunnel (or
hole - trou) through a thick concrete floor in their cell (covered
over with cardboard boxes) and another wall
- the film's dominant sounds - the very loud smashing
of the iron bed-leg into stone and concrete as the men hammered through
a corner of the cell floor and then through a cement wall en route
to the sewer escape route; also the heavy breathing of the prisoners
exerting themselves, and only very little sparse dialogue
- the cautious and fearful tensions and suspicions developed
when a fifth, fresh-faced cellmate Claude Gaspard (Marc Michel),
charged with first degree attempted murder (manslaughter) of his
wife, was transferred into their cell just before the planned jail-break,
and the concurrent issues of trust and loyalty
- the nighttime escape sequence - with a completely
silent soundtrack (without music), except for diegetic sound effects
- in the film's final few minutes, the plan went awry;
the periscope revealed that the prisoners' cell was surrounded by
prison guards - obviously, Claude had betrayed his compatriots to
the warden, and he screamed for his life when the others realized
what he had done; the guards burst into the cell to apprehend the
four prisoners, as one of them attacked and tried to strangle squealer
Gaspard; each of the four men was dragged from the cell after the
escape plot was discovered, and strip-searched in the corridor outside
the cell; Gaspard was directed to a new cell - # 7 down the corridor,
and as he passed the others lined up, Roland turned and spoke only
a few words to him: "Poor Gaspard"
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