10. À nous la liberté

So you should really be careful when purchasing DVDs from Amazon marketplace.I fell once at the wrong region fence. This time a fell at the 'check there are English subtitles' fence! Merde! Bless You Tube though! (They have it in 8 parts easily linked, perfect clarity, with subtitles.)

Absolutely charming film though. Great story. 2 friends in prison hatch a plan to escape. One gets free and makes his way in the world, the other gets caught and does his time. The escapee prospers and they met up in coincidence and become friends again.

It's essentially a story about freedom, hence the title. There is a great deal of machine and routine symbolism in the film and Henri Marchand, as Emile, is the proverbial spanner in the works. Whether it is in the actual factory line, or being the distraction for the director of the factory.

It's certainly film that is a stepping stone from the silent era. It was a good 15 minutes in before I realised I needed subtitles. Not that there is anything wrong with the dialogue. You can just see, that with subtitles, it works functionally well as a silent. The score is the same, though the choral singing by the prisoners/factory workers does add more to the machine symbolism.

I AM considering this my first foray into silents and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Great acting, direction, score at al.

Brava!