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Fantastic!

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I picked this DVD up from my local library. What caught my eye was that it was on of 'The Criterion Collection'. I did like the movie. Jeanne (Marika Green) was very beautiful. This movie was very emotional. I felt sad about the story and wished the main actor Michel (Martin LaSalle) would change his pickpocketing ways. After watching the Special Edition Features I have a better idea why this is such a great movie. The director Robert Bresson is very unique. If anyone wants to see another movie on pickpockets there is one called "Harry in your Pocket" 1973 with James Coburn. It is amazing that pickpockets has it's own profession. I will watch my wallet in airports and walking downtown.Jim

From director Robert Bresson (Au Hasard Balthazar, L'Argent), the title of this film, featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die as the one of the entries, was distinctive and one that sounded worth watching, I was hoping for the best for this French film. Basically in Paris, France lives Michel (Martin LaSalle), a young man who finds an interest and a skill in picking pockets, i.e. slipping his fingers into or sneaking out wallets and purses from people's pockets. He is caught quickly the first time he does it a horse racing venue, but the Inspector (Jean Pélégri) released him because of lack of evidence, and he is allowed to take the money, and soon after this he becomes part of a group of pickpockets who teach him more skills. Michel visits his Mother (Dolly Scal), and he also meets Jeanne (Marika Green), who he begs to visit more often, and he gets the chance to get to know her better while on a date with his friend tagging Jacques (Pierre Leymarie) along, but he leaves this after he steals a watch at the carnival. He wants to clean up some of his guilt by visiting the Inspector and showing him a book he got about professional pickpocketing, but the police officer hardly glances at it, but he returns to his apartment and realises the Inspector was shunning him while he was there so that the police could search his apartment, but they failed to find the stolen stash of cash. Michel's Mother dies, and he attends the funeral with Jeanne, and after it the Inspector tells him that before she died she had some money stolen from her, he suspects her son did it, but he does not arrest him and he leaves the country to live an honest life without crime, but he throws all his money away spending on booze and women. Eventually Michel returns to France, and to Jeanne who he is shocked to find out mothered a child with Jacque but they did not marry and she has been left with nothing, so he starts working again to support her and the child, but he gives into temptation and is back to pickpocketing. In the end Michel is arrested and jailed with a confirmed theft by pickpocketing, and it is in prison that he realises with her regular visits that he does not truly love Jeanne. Also starring Kassagi as Accomplice, Pierre Étaix as Accomplice and César Gattegno as Detective. Leading actor LaSalle does well using hardly any facial expression at all to make an intriguing character that you unsure whether to be sympathetic or concerned for, I will admit first off that I sort of dozed or did not pay full attention to midway through, by I understood just about what was going on, and it was certainly an interesting enough crime drama. Very good!

All in all, while the film is good- mainly on the strength of several bravura isolated scenes, it often comes off as something akin to Neo-Realism Lite. There is nothing of the real pathos nor insight that invests some of the classics from Federico Fellini, Vittorio De Sica, and the Italian classics that were made a decade before this film. Consequently, the film comes off as all head with little heart or soul, and, despite its occasional bravura moments, the film is not particularly deep, and especially so considering it against the titanic achievements of Mouchette and Au Hasard Balthazar. Also, there are numerous little moments that just clunk, starting with the film's titled opening, wherein words scrawl across the screen and tell us of what we are about to witness, that this film is not a thriller but a work of art about the communion of two souls. This overt invocation of Romantic bidungsromans just tanks, in and of itself, and because it utterly destroys the film's end. We know that Michel and Jeanne will end up together, and, worse, the film does not mitigate this solecism by providing a meaningful how the end is reach, even if we know what the end will be.So, Pickpocket is not a great film, much less a masterpiece, in any sense of the term that has relevance, but it is a film that shows potential for plumbing things at a level deeper than even films that are better realized. Unfortunately for it, and its viewers, that potential would only be realized in later Bresson offerings. Of course, there are certainly worse things in life, though. Ask Michel or his portrayer.

at the beginning of Pickpocket, before the opening credits, Bresson needed to stress that this is not crime thriller. he explained that he seeks, through image and sound, to express the nightmare of a young man led by weakness to adventure in stealing, for which he was not destined to.. this is a story of sin and redemptionbeing interested in Bresson's cinema and after watching some of his films, i've come to know just how much he dislikes expressive acting. Bresson insists to show no emotion or modulation from his actors; displaying almost exclusively blank stares and largely stagnant apparels and levelled speaking volume - his ascetic nature. but i think that in the process, he constantly invites the viewer into the film because in those faces, we see and observe what we are bringing to them; and the involvement goes quite deep once the viewer realizes his role.we do not know the reasons which led the protagonist (Michel) to steal and we never see him use the fruit of his thefts. Bresson is showing the effects, not the causes, which leaves us out of the loop, but it's intentional to make us feel before understanding. we decide that it's a compulsion for Michel to steal, as he is ecstatic when he surrenders to it, he is dominating.throughout the film, the exercise of pickpocketing becomes more compulsive, and the directorial treatment grows more meticulous, resulting in a fascinating sequence showing the gang of pickpockets operating successively in a railway station and on a train. during the precise quick series of stealing, the camera perfectly mirrors them by quickly changing angles, distances and directions; complemented by skillful editing.i'm presently having a major Radiohead kick, and i couldn't help but to somehow make a connection here. the film, like the band often do, presents a splendid portrait of alienation and revolt. the camera seems to patiently follow Michel or wait for his arrival; he is estranged from his surroundings. the camera generally takes a face to face position which creates a sense of separation between him and those around. there's also a feeling of leaving adolescence and entering adulthood; the act of theft can be seen as an act of revolt, a rejection of society. yet we feel a strong to desire to exist and find a place in this world.Michel is a proud rebellious man. in a conversation with the inspector, he outlined his theory of superior beings, who would be above the law (very reminding of Brandon from Hitchcock's Rope). but later in the film, Michel deliberately tries to pickpocket a police decoy even if he is suspicious of him. and when he's caught, he shows no reaction; almost as if he's asking for it. maybe that's his way of redemption (to trick himself into letting his guard down to finally submit to the common man laws); or maybe he just couldn't help but give in to his compulsion.. either way, the film shows no motives"however this adventure and the strange path it takes, brings together two souls that may otherwise never have met". there's graceful sense of predestination here; in the film's powerful conclusion, Michel finds his redemption. the revelation of his love to Jeanne enlightens and finally saves him. Pickpocket is a compassionate exploration of human frailty and a masterpiece of narrative economy.