Pickpocket (1959)

(On Cable TV, June 2020) “Ugh, Bresson” is slowly becoming “Eh, Bresson,” and while that doesn’t sound like much, it’s actually quite a bit of progress: I can now start watching his films without feeling as if it’s going to be as terrible as That Donkey Movie. Not that writer-director Robert Bresson steps away all that far from his usual techniques in Pickpocket: it’s still sparsely scored, delivered in low-key, almost affect-less style, employing non-professional actors, and joyfully dispenses with notions of genre conventions. Despite revolving around an active criminal pursued by the police, Pickpocket is far more of a character study than a genre crime film—it zigs and zags and seldom settles for the simplest plot development. Adding philosophical musings to a crime story, it almost defies categorization. I actually… ahem… liked it, which is more than I can say about other Bresson films.