Le trou

Le trou is one of the great prison escape films and a profound meditation on freedom and confinement; it “exists in the same spiritual screen realm as Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion and Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped” (Telluride Film Festival). It has us rooting as never before for the success of its protagonists, all convicts of varying degrees of toughness attempting a prison break. In this film, Jacques Becker has attempted what he might have called a “true” film: he achieves a totally engrossing tale through an extreme of realistic detail.