Papillon (1973)

How sad is this?

Did you people see the same film I saw?

A Masterpiece!

A different way of telling a story

I recently watched Papillon after seeing a Decades TV show about Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman as Dega stars alongside a super cool Steve McQueen as Papillon. Papillon and Dega are convicted of crimes in France and sent to prison basically to die, in French Guinea. You are walked through the seriousness of parades thru the streets of France, to a dangerous ocean passing, to the grim arrival in prison where you are told of your chances. Worst of all, there is no escape. People have tried, but never successfully.Dega has apparently quite a bit of money, mostly from counterfeiting, while Papillon is a thief. They form a friendship based on protection but then later that forms into friendship and a lifelong bond.The cinematography is bold, thinking back to 1973 mind you. The story is sharp and crisp, except for one scene during part of the escape where I'm not sure it was real, or if he was fantasizing. There is beautiful scenery that might make you say, hey, I could end up being stuck there. But Papillon wants to fly like a butterfly and be free always. No matter how long you put him in solitary, deprive him of food, light, companionship. He keeps on going like the energizer bunny till the end.Hoffman and McQueen are two of our all-time great actors, near the prime of their acting careers, in a terrific story with great direction and cinematography. Some small parts of the escape get a bit long, which made me wonder if this was like Life of Pi. But whatever, the results are the same. Can they pull off the greatest escape ever? Watch till the end to find out.Must-see movie. Enjoy Papillon!

This isn't one of those gung-ho, happy-go-lucky prison-escape Hollywwod pictures; it is long (almost 2 and 1/2 hours!), grim (even the humor is grim), and quite adult (there is a beheading, an impaling, female nudity, male homosexuality, verbal mention of masturbation - not things you normally see in a mainstream Hollywwod movie). It does go on longer than necessary, but it remains gripping most of the time; the solitary-confinement segment is particularly compelling. Director Franklin Schaffner is not just a solid storyteller, he has some visual ideas as well (the second hallucination offers the single most unforgettable image in the film, IMO). The film also features one of Steve McQueen's most difficult and demanding (physically and emotionally) roles - and he is excellent. *** out of 4.

This is a film that I think had all the potential to be a classic. Based on the memoir of the same name that I'm sure had an embellishment or two, about a tale of survival and escape and perseverance, and headed by a genuine movie star in McQueen. In spots, it can be great. There is a moment right after the trio escape the prison, that Dega falls down in agony while Papillon discovers that the boat they had been promised is rotten and no good. McQueen bursts into an uncharacteristic rage at the man he has just spent 2 years in solitary confinement for, and it could have been a visceral moment of pure emotion, having been foiled after the escape they had planned for so long, but it loses its power because McQueen chooses to put on this overwhelming sneer, which feels petty rather than being born of desperation and fear of once again being a prisoner. Both of them are convincing enough. Hoffman's Dega wears a pair of spectacles that balloon his pupils and give him this distinctly endearing geekiness. He frequently slips into his past persona as if he was once more selling counterfeit war bonds, and appealing to men and their patriotic pride and generosity. These sort of conniving salesmen are easy to befriend and to gain trust, but does it ever go beyond that? Papillon may be a better man than I, because it was hard to identify anything in their friendship that was worth those two torturous years in a dark cell. He tears up upon the end of that sacrifice, and as he makes his final leap to freedom, but is there really any substance to warrant it? It has trouble deciding what sort of film it should be. There's humour when Dega's intentions of luxury are foiled and we cut suddenly to the backbreaking Kilo 40, and when they encounter a crocodile and banter over who removes it. When Papillon is abused by the prison guards, the soundtrack balloons and exaggerates the hit and zooms in eagerly just to make sure we understand the impact. And there are several hallucination/dream sequences, which seem to belong to another film altogether, but speak so plainly and vaguely of themes that could apply to almost anything. These are much less effective than McQueen himself. In the most haunting scene, he mutters a wish to confess, but painstakingly resists the urge. He holds back tears, his lips tremble, and we can see every ounce of pain and sheer will in the bloodshot eyes of a man who so diligently values and chases his freedom, and chooses to forgo it for a friend. Later, as he leaves his second spell of confinement, this one 5 years, we see its effects via makeup that have made his body weak, his hair white, and his speech haggard, but it does not seem as bad as before. This is an issue of pacing; we spend entirely too much time in the first prison, and little after it. It seems to be a 2 hour film that has somehow conjured an extra half an hour in excess. There is an wordless sequence where Papillon stumbles upon a native colony, and somehow manages to befriend them and even find romance, and it is the most clichéd, insufferable and unnecessary segment of them all. Similarly, they also stumble upon a leper colony, and Papillon is once again a hit, treating them with empathy as if they were human beings too and gaining their assistance, but at least this is done with sincerity. Schaffner's biggest triumph is that it feels epic in scale. The focus stretches into infinity and shows just how isolated the prisoners are from the modern and civilised world, but also how beautiful and crazy the wild is. As they talk of escape with desire in their eyes, the endless sea's horizon bobbles in the background. Silvers of light in the cramped boat hold reveal the shiny sheen of the prisoner's sweaty bodies. They work in the forests, rain, hail or sun. As Papillon is dragged to confinement, they pass a idyllic beach-front, which is swapped for the grimy grey walls that he loses sanity in. Koenekamp silhouettes characters at golden hour paddling upstream, on pure white Hawaiian-style beaches drinking coconut juice, and atop the cliffs of Devil's Island, which contrary to its name, is covered in palm trees, piglets and streams full of crayfish. It seems like paradise, at least according to Dega, but is is not freedom. And in the final shot, we glide over and reveal the triumphant Papillon, who shouts jubilantly even as he has miles and miles of deep blue ocean still to traverse. This could have felt magnificent, but it is merely satisfying.

Papillon is a story of what men will do in a time of crisis, such as being in a rather hellish penal prison colony run by the French on one of their islands. Steve McQueen was probably the only actor that I can think of from the period who could portray this character, at least if this had to be done the Hollywood way (of course the man was French, Henri Carriere, so this goes without saying not counting French actors; perhaps Belmondo could've pulled it off, who knows). But there's so much that happens in his story, spanning many years (seemingly decades, though it's never completely clear), that I kept finding myself thinking 'Ok, oh wow, what happens next?"' It actually isn't entirely a prison movie, it should be noted; the last hour mostly takes place when Papillon, his friend Louis Dega (Dustin Hoffman) and another prisoner find a way to get off of the island by boat. But I think the parts of the film I will remember for, well, forever, will be the scenes set in at the prison, and even those early scenes where the filmmaker, Franklin J Schaffner (via writers Trumbo and Semple), simply shows what the situation is: all these men put together, most if not all of them have done something likely prison-worthy, but for this place, this setting, an entire ocean away from their homeland is the thing. Indeed an early scene on the ship that takes the prisoners across the sea, and when Papillon first gets into trouble (one of those middle-of-the-night attack things) is just a small sample of what horrors await him.What Papillon and Dega have done does count, up to a point - these men are a safe-cracker who got a falsely accused murder rap and a counterfeiter respectively - and the actors make them vulnerable and just interesting to watch. So that by the time these men are having to watch all the time to not end up on a s***-list, it gets tense. And yet, it being Papillon as played by Steve frigging McQueen, the star of The Great Escape, we might hope that he has one goal: to get the hell out. But there's no special motorcycle to do a jump over in this case. When this character gets caught, he has to do more time - in solitary - which is around a 15-20 minute chunk in the middle of this film.I should be clear on this point: if you've seen certain scenes set in solitary confinement in other movies, this is one of the most brutal to watch if not just right up there (oddly enough perhaps the other McQueen's film Hunger tops it). We see Papillon stuck in a cell for what feels like a while - and it ends up being two years (!) - and the whole purpose, as he is told by the main prison warden, is to break him from mind to body, from head to toe. And one sees McQueen, giving it his all as an actor, becoming unhinged at a lot of points, eating bugs, having dream-hallucinations of his past in France and with his old friends (and dead fellow prisoners), and it's staggering work. Overall in this film I don't know if I've seen this man give so much for a character; for an actor who was often known for playing quiet, stoic types (and he could do it well), here it's more like hanging it all out. Which, when playing up against someone like Dustin Hoffman, it's a good idea not to be sleepwalking in a role.Papillon puts so many stakes for its characters, and yet what sets it apart from other prison-break-out movies are two things mainly: how bleak and unrelenting the pressure and suspense is, that at any minute everything can very feasibly fall apart (as the writing and direction make clear, this is a painfully realistic world, or a realistically painful one, same thing), and the location. It's beautiful in the jungles and beaches, but a lot of things can kill you (or people, like the lepers). The only real flaw for me is when the movie slows down just at point of the second to third act when Papillon winds up with the natives on the beach. There's no dialog, which is a nice experiment, but it drags the story down: up until then things have been epic in scope, but the pace is fast and it's all down to the story. If anything drags it, it's this unnecessary sequence.But by the ending, and it's really in the last 15/20 minutes that this tale gains some awesome pathos while still being a tough 'guy' movie, you see what this journey has done for these two men. The characters are built up so well enough, and portrayed with enough grit and honesty, that we care every step of the way (Hoffman really sells the nebbishness, but taking it from caricature to realism). Oh, and Jerry Goldsmith's score, which isn't constant but has enough for you to notice it, is a triumph of adventure/action/drama music for a movie of this kind.