Pickpocket

Watch the trailer for Pickpocket (1959)

France, 1959
75 mins
Cert PG (TBC)
French with English subtitles

Dir Robert Bresson
With Martin Lasalle, Marika Green, Pierre Leymaire, Jean Pélégri, Kassagi and Pierre Etaix

In one of Robert Bresson’s most admired, intriguing and influential films, resolute drifter Michel spends his days learning the art of pickpocketing and targeting the unsuspecting citizens of 1950s Paris.

Following his inevitable arrest (and almost immediate release) he begins to reflect on the morality of crime, spouting vague theories about exceptional individuals being above the law. Lost in another world, he rejects the support of his friends in favour of pickpocketing, and the only way he can seem to find a place for himself in society is to engineer a head-on collision with it.