Pickpocket is a film which I only quite recently became aware of, yet the more I learned about it the more I could see its influence on modern cinema just in the few brief shots I had seen of it. I decided to seek it out and give it a go, it was made at a time when French cinema was changing the way people thought about how films were made, and its standing among critics is superb, so why not give it a go?
The story is simple enough, Michel is at a racetrack when he decides to steal some money from a spectator. He is caught as he is leaving the race, yet without sufficient evidence the police are forced to free him, though they remain suspicious of him throughout. From here Michel decides to continue his life of thievery and meets fellow pickpockets and hones his skills. During this his mother, who he has been avoiding seeing, is very ill and ultimately dies, he forms a close connection with one of his mothers neighbour, a morally sound woman who knows nothing of his criminal activities. When the police are getting close to proving that he is a thief he leaves the country, only to return a few years later and attempt stealing at a racetrack again where he is caught and imprisoned for good this time.
Firstly, the film is wonderful, there isn't a wasted second, which at a mere 73 minutes long you would hope not. On the surface it's a very simple film, but it leaves so much open to your own interpretation without being annoyingly ambiguous. For instance the relationship between Michel and his mother is never fully explained. All we know is that Michel does not want to see her, but that he obviously cares for her, leaving money with her neighbour to give to her. The reasons for his distance, whether they are shame for having stolen off her in the past, or simply not wanting to see his mother looking so frail, are never explained, and they do not need to be. In fact, much in the same way that the protagonist in Albert Camus' The Outsider is a fairly blank slate, so too is Michel, allowing the viewer to assign their own views of him into the film, whether you believe his view that he has a right to steal, or whether you find him to be completely wrong, your own projection can only be the right one, a stance that I rather like.
Technically the film works wonderfully too. The soundtrack is incredibly restricted, only really used during the sequences where we see Michel writing a letter about his experiences, the rest of the film taking place with real world sounds which only add to his sense of isolation. There is also a marvelous sequence around two thirds of the way through where he and his cohorts execute a mass pickpocket scheme at a train station. After so many years of seeing a stylish view of pickpocketing through modern hollywood films, whether it's Catch Me If You Can, or Oceans Eleven (both of which I really enjoyed), it is interesting to see a much more stripped back affair, with lots of waist high shots where you can see in great detail how they are pulling off these steals. Somehow, with a less showy approach, much more stripped back and infinitely slower you get a greater sense of the skill and style that has to go into the theft itself.
The film could be translated in many ways. You could discuss the allure of the material world perhaps, or about obsession, and how the thrill of danger is just as addictive as any drug. You could talk about the isolation of the modern world (which in 1959 was starting to creep into the post war world with mass consumerism truly starting to take hold) and through the lengths people will go to to make a connection with another person. These are just some of the things that I have read into this film, and I'm sure there is much more you could see, and indeed much more detail that those who are much more intelligent than I could see also. All I know is that this was a wonderful film, both technically brilliant as well as thought provoking and still relevant after 52 years.
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