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Apr 03, 2015Nursebob rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
In 1933 convicted murderer Henri Charrière—nicknamed “Papillon” (Butterfly) for the tattoo on his chest—was sent to the infamous penal colony in French Guyana despite his strenuous pleas of innocence. Surrounded by swamps, malaria, and an ocean teeming with sharks and deadly currents he nevertheless attempted several jailbreaks, even making it all the way to Colombia where he was adopted by a tribe of natives before being recaptured. His flights led to increasingly dire punishments from the camp commandant until, several years later, he was finally able to take one last stab at freedom as he planned an escape from Devil’s Island itself. Based on Charrière’s bestselling memoirs (which have since fallen into disrepute as mounting evidence suggests he may have fabricated many of his adventures) Frank Schaffner’s grand prison epic still manages to entertain and enthral thanks in large part to Dalton Trumbo’s visceral script, elaborate tropical sets (shot in Jamaica), and the combined star power of leads Steve McQueen as Papillon and Dustin Hoffman as fellow prisoner and loyal sidekick Louis Dega. Starting with a march of shame through the streets of Paris as the prisoners are boarded onto ships bound for South America, Schaffner goes heavy on the grit and squalor: the trip to Guyana resembles a migration of slaves, the prison itself is rife with dangers both natural and human, and everyone from the guards to a morally suspect Mother Superior is on the take. Papillon’s incarceration is shown in wretched detail, especially a harrowing two-year stint in solitary confinement in which he shared his narrow cell with bats and supplemented his meagre diet with centipedes and cockroaches. Juxtaposing these jail scenes with widescreen panoramas of palm-fringed beaches and impossibly blue skies Schaffner makes you feel his protagonist’s intense yearning for freedom as well as his soul-crushing defeats as plans fall apart and an implacable prison staff seem intent on breaking his mind, body, and spirit. Even if the “true story” on which it is based is suspect, this remains both an affecting tale of one man’s perseverance against impossible odds and a condemnatory statement on man’s ability to inflict cruelty on others. Highly watchable.