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Au bagne (1905) Online

Au bagne (1905) Online
1905 Ferdinand Zecca
Original Title :
Au bagne
Genre :
Movie / Drama / Short
Year :
1905
Directror :
Ferdinand Zecca
Type :
Movie
Time :
8min
Rating :
7.2/10

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A prisoner attempts an escape from a brutal penal institution.

Au bagne (1905) Online

At an island penal institution, new prisoners are brought in one-by-one, and introduced to the harsh realities of prison life. They are put in fetters, sent to perform hard physical labor, and treated brutally. One convict manages to cut through the bars on his cell window. He climbs out, steals a boat, and begins a desperate attempt to escape from the island.


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This short Ferdinand Zecca feature has some fair action in it, and it also creates a reasonably believable atmosphere. If you make allowances for the limitations of its era, it's relatively well-crafted and well-conceived.

The story is set in a formidable-looking island penal institution. (It seems likely that it was supposed to represent Devil's island.) The main story is about an escape attempt, but the preliminary scenes might be more interesting conceptually.

Before the main action starts, there is a short sequence with the new prisoners arriving and being transformed from normal-looking citizens into abject convicts. In showing this ignominious transformation, it brings to mind sequences such as the one in Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man" in which Henry Fonda's character is processed. In this Zecca feature, we never know what these men are accused of - in some cases, they probably do deserve the punishment they are getting, but by showing only what happens to them in the prison, it changes the perspective on subsequent events.

The story that follows this opening is all right, and it might have been more compelling if it had been told with more detail and at greater length. It still has some decent action, but the impression that the movie leaves with you is really the setting and the tone, rather than the events themselves.