Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Movie Review-Pickpocket

Pickpocket was the most ridiculously sentimental French film that I’ve ever watched all the way through. The plot line is severely lacking in common sense and the acting was atrocious. However, its merit lies in the ties between money and stability. Humans have tried over the years to rebel against the pure business of marriage and drag the heart and flimsy feelings into the transaction, the fact remains that to have a happy life people need to have a means of providing for their families. This is what ultimately drives our goals, ambitions, and work ethic along the way. If we’re practical enough to care about reality, that is.
Pickpocket was released in 1959 by French film director Robert Bresson starring Martin LaSalle and Marika Green. Although I realize that 1959 did not have the same cinematic options as films today, which seem to be lacking a basic plot at times in favor of simply blowing things up and being incredibly loud. However, the acting being so obvious was at times painful to watch. No self respecting subway car thief would be so obvious. The only thing NOT obvious in the whole mess was the budding love between the Michel and Jeanne. I realized that this was going to end up happening after reading other reviews and information on the film before watching it but still never saw the signs of this happening. Even during an awkward conversation between Michel and Jacques reference whether Jeanne and Jacques love each other, it never occurred to me that the pathetic Michel was in love with Jeanne. I simply saw him as being a weak and pathetic character all around merely wishing he could be more connected to people not specifically Jeanne.
During the progression of the “love story” or Michel and Jeanne it is noticed that the pathetic, out-of-work thief has begun to pull away from all humans including his own sickly mother. The saintly mother lays dying in her small apartment while Michel helps her with money by stealing it turning down the offer of legitimate work from Jacques. Michel gives some intriguing diatribes about the legitimacy of thieving and its place in society. Thievery can serve to save civilization and is in some respects acceptable for noble purposes such as a poor person stealing bread to eat. This so of Robin Hood talk would be moving if this particular character was stealing money from those rich people betting on horses, which in a sense is the long drawn out process which could be accomplished by flushing money down a toilet, to give to a charity or children’s hospital. Instead he’s simply avoiding work to live a life stealing from those who go to work each day to earn a respectable income for their families or gain a sense of helping the world in some way. Michel is content to take the profits of the hard work of others. The only slightly more pathetic creature in this film, arguably, is Jeanne.
She has convinced herself that it is noble to choose to be poor and sickly with her bastard child rather than spend a loveless marriage with the other man of this story, Jacques. Jeanne leads poor Jacques into a relationship making it look as though she will follow through with what should be the inevitable outcome of all of Jacques’ hard work, marriage. She then flakes on the unspoken (assumed) promise of a content companionship that Jacques has been working toward to end up being unable to provide well for herself or her child. At this point a spark of hope comes into the film. The audience sees a noble bone grow in Michel who vows to help dear Jeanne provide for her bastard child in ways that she has turned away with Jacques. Michel gets a stable job and manages to give Jeanne a small amount of money which probably lead her to believe things would turn out in the end as we all hope they will. But what Jeanne doesn’t realize and what the audience is tricked into thinking isn’t true, is that the man who is deteremined to always take the easy way out of situations that are just a bit to “real” for his liking will never change. The temptation to see if he’s still “got it” returns to Michel and he ends up in jail, sad and solitary. Jeanne stays away at one point saying that the baby has been sick but any woman watching this knows that there was an inner struggle happening here. Does she go back and try to mend things with the man that can provide for her and her child but never allow her to be a dreamer or does she go with the perpetual hope that never turns out for very long? She makes the decision that most silly girls make at some point in their years growing up, she chooses the dreamer that really has no concept of real life. He will continue to go through life not making much of himself and the same cycle will repeat itself. Its a tragedy which was acted out as a comedy, though I’m willing to bet unintentionally.
In an effort to show an accurate picture of life at the time the movie should have shown the hovel that Jeanne and her child were living in more clearly. Jeanne should have sought out the protection and stability of the man who was willing to love her in the only way he knew how. Jacques would have provided a home and food and ability for Jeanne to not only take care of the one child she had but to also have more children if she so chose. The modern viewer may forget that work options for females were not, even in France, what they are today. Jeanne had limited options at best to provide for herself and relying on a man who’s only marketable skill is stealing from others is just not a rational choice. Instead of the romanticized storyline of the heart winning out over the head, maybe a better angle would have been to simply show the trajectory of life and its inability to care of one would want it to be.

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