The Prelinger Antidote

Robert Bresson raises the art of kleptomania to visual poetry in this film about a young man who chooses thieving on the streets of Paris over an honest-day’s work.

Via minimal editing and incredibly nuanced and subtle direction, we are invited to observe the pickpocket’s successes and failures as he attempts to hone his craft. Psychologically we are toyed with—appalled at the audacity of his crimes, but admiringly complicit when he pulls them off. At one moment we wish him caught while at others we dread the possibility—perhaps because this bad man is actually a very complex man. An arrogant man but also a vulnerable man.

At times, Pickpocket feels like the polar opposite of those social guidance propaganda films from the 1950s. Instead of explaining how to avoid ne’er-do-wells, it gives you tips on how to be one.

It’s not hard to appreciate why censors in some countries were so spooked by it.