Pickpocket -1959- -

A perfect, austere diamond. Essential viewing for cinephiles, existentialists, and anyone who has ever secretly admired the grace of a magician.

For ninety minutes, Michel avoids the trap. He outsmarts the police. He refines his technique. He falls into a strange, cold romance with Jeanne (Marika Green), the neighbor who cares for his mother. He tells himself he doesn't need love. He only needs the "glory" of the perfect heist. pickpocket -1959-

There is a moment about twenty minutes into Robert Bresson’s 1959 masterpiece, Pickpocket , where the film stops feeling like a movie and starts feeling like a prayer meeting for sinners. A perfect, austere diamond

Bresson treats this absurd justification with deadly seriousness. We are never allowed to laugh at Michel. We are trapped inside his hollow eyes, watching him rationalize his way toward self-destruction. If you watch Pickpocket , forget the faces. Bresson famously used his actors as "models," forbidding them from acting in the traditional sense. No tears. No shouting. No dramatic close-ups of crying eyes. He outsmarts the police

It is the most Christian ending in cinema history. Not because he prays. But because he admits he was wrong. Grace, Bresson argues, is not found in the perfect crime. It is found in the prison cell, when you finally admit you need another human being. Pickpocket is not for everyone. It is slow. It is quiet. It is shot in stark black and white. If you need explosions or witty banter, look elsewhere.

It’s believing you don’t need anyone else to survive.