Pickpocket

A young man in Paris begins picking pockets without being able to explain why, even to himself. He almost wants to be caught. The film does not treat theft as a way of getting by; the narrative concentrates on the movement of hands, on glances and on silence, and the thefts are cut almost as dance. Robert Bresson uses no professional actors and asks nothing expressive of them, so the feeling comes entirely from form. Martin LaSalle leads, having never acted before. The film is related to a Dostoyevsky novel without being an adaptation of it. Who it's for: those interested in formalist, cold cinema and in Bresson's method. Who it's not for: viewers who want the character's reasons; the film withholds them deliberately.