Fast-forward to the scene where Fontaine and Jost wait in silence on the roof, listening to the deep and profound sounds of the night and the rhythmic motions of the prison complex. Darkness and the threat of detection looming everywhere, the tension is nearly unbearable, pushed to the foreground by Bresson’s decision to enhance the strength and sharpness of each sound they make, as they creep across softly crunching gravel or when they sit in agony and wonder what the origin of a specific creaking in the distance might be. Having come this far to an open place outside the restricted scope of his cell, Fontaine has no foresight as to what lies in waiting for him past a hundred yards from his cell. Freedom gains a new visual metaphor: the human model transcends the mechanism which brought him into being, by disappearing from sight.At this point in his search for the actual, he is confronted with its spectre: ontologies are no longer situated in the concrete use of his instruments, but dispersed invisibly in the dangerous cadences of unseen guards walking to and fro on the grounds below, or in the distant call of a train passing at night. No longer the automaton who methodically scraped down the end of a spoon for days in order to harness the power of a chisel, Fontaine is faced with the “despair of uncertainty” which Pascal so vividly describes, a phenomenal realm of crippling doubt that can only be overcome by the invisible instruments of pure unyielding faith — because “faith cometh by hearing.” Fontaine (literally) encounters a threshold separating him from liberation and actuality, a chasm formed by the outer prison walls and the high roof, below which a prison-guard circles around on a bicycle, as it were, like a clockwork mechanism. The obstacle saps his spirit. Fontaine delays, hours pass, the dawn is already near at hand, while Jost waits by his side. It is only at a moment of perfect spontaneity, hovering over the mechanistic universe embodied by the methodical passing of the guard on a bicycle, that Fontaine (literally) takes the Kierkegaardian leap of faith. He achieves his purpose: a triumph over automatism by virtue of the automaton’s thoughtless gesture — faith demonstrated in the beating heart of a concrete action.

The end-scene, staggering in its surge of emotion, swells up in a repetition of Mozart’s “Kyrie Eleison” and consummates in a strong hug and whisper of joy shared by the two freed men. They march away from us, almost forcefully against a powerful instinct to run madly, and walk into a sudden drift of fog that consumes the camera eye, while disappearing from the prison-house of language into the site of the actual. Freedom gains a new visual metaphor: the human model transcends the mechanism which brought him into being, by disappearing from sight. The body-in-kinema has finally escaped to a life freed from the fragmentation of history and scenario. The mechanism has vanished, and in its place stands a miracle: the perfect film.