![]() Retreating from the back room, the other man proceeds to rapidly show Michel just how much he has to learn. They meet at a bar, nothing of import said between them. The two spot each other in the wild, each going about their jobs. What springs up between them is an apprenticeship that is coded just as much as a seduction. Michel is a fumbling teen in these scenes, barely successful in unhooking his first bra.Įventually Michel discovers another pickpocket (listed in the credits only as Kassagi) who has been at this far longer and has done far better than Michel. There’s no mistaking the sexual overtones of these thefts, ultimately acts of violation and intrusion, done up close, shots all of faces and probing hands and the sudden rush of even small successes. During his next few attempts, he steals bits and pieces from people on the subway, each time with the sweaty, overexcited expression of an adolescent doing something lurid. Much of the movie revolves around exploring Michel’s adventures in petty theft, filmed with an eye for the touches that bring us along into Michel’s mindset. Michel's furtive attempts to pickpocket never shy away from feeling sexually predatory. Here Michel locks himself away from the world, self-styling himself as something Other. Michel is a classical obsessive loner, pushing away everyone around him, living in a small empty apartment that is little more than a bed, a table, and some books. This mostly means Jeanne (Marika Green), a young woman who tends to Michel’s dying mother and seems equally concerned for him and his seemingly shirked responsibilities. The story mostly revolves then around Michel’s growth into his chosen profession, to the dismay of those around him. The inspector (Jean Pélégri) sends Michel on his way, with the stern condemnation that he’s got his eye out for him. Unfortunately, he isn’t nearly as good as he is eager, and he ends up being picked up by police who know that he stole the money, but can’t prove it. He seems drawn to thievery through as much obsession as necessity, and from the first moment we see him steal from a woman with a mix of exhilaration and almost sensual fixation. This thief is Michel (Martin LaSalle), a young man who is just getting into the game. ![]() Pickpocket is, as you might expect, the story of a thief. It passes its short run time with a story that is certainly well worn (the comparisons to Crime and Punishment have been belabored to death), but with an eye to the minutiae that bespeaks to a subtler, more internal understanding of its subject matter. It is a resolutely modest picture, with no standout performances and a sensibility that is so low key it feels almost effortless and therefor altogether too easy. It would be easy to mistake Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket for something less than the sum of it’s parts. Which is a perfect segue into my feelings on today’s movie. And some simply refine, the mellow aging of something built to withstand the scrutiny of a person at multiple points in their life. Others, remembered fondly, are cast in a stark new unflattering light. Some movies, having fallen poorly the first time, suddenly blossom into magical reversals. I feel besieged by things I haven’t seen and should have, a constant sense that no matter how much I watch I am constantly falling behind.īut, admittedly, the act of returning to movies equipped with greater knowledge is always fascinating. The act of revisiting a movie is something I do very rarely anymore, to be honest. Today’s movie comes from the depths of ‘Criterion movies I saw before this article was a thing’, which is a relatively small but potent group of films that were the impetus for me to start writing seriously (and regularly) about what I was watching in the first place. As always, most of these come from the generous offerings available to Hulu Plus subscribers unless otherwise noted. ![]() Hello and welcome to the latest installment of Criterion Cuts, the weekly article where I dig into the archives of everyone’s favorite foreign/art house home video distribution company and unearth some obscurity and tell you just why it might be worth your time. ![]()
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