How is it possible that Bresson can make the best and the worst films alternatively? Diary of a Country Priest was terrible, A Man Escaped was amazing, and now we're back to terrible with Pickpocket. I hope Au Hasard Balthazar will be a return to amazing.
As in all his other movies, the actors are emotionless bags of flesh announcing words. It was impossible to watch the dialogue and/or "acting" without cringing. This separates the viewer from the characters and the movie becomes unengaging and therefore boring, no matter what's going on on the screen. If something is even going on on the screen: half the time the camera lingers on nothingness when people enter or leave. The plot was flat and ineffective; it seemed as if everything was planned in order to fit the mold of the overarching theme.
There are only two things I really liked about this movie. The first was a philosophy put to words early on in the movie. Responding to Michel's idea that thieves could be good, a police chief says that it would turn the whole world upside down. Michel responds, "The world is already upside down. This could set it right." In a sense, that was the theme of the entire movie: the reversal of expectations. The second was a scene lasting around five minutes where Michel and two accomplices pickpocket about 30 people on a train. It was an orgy of cool.IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0053168/