Mouchette's father is an alcoholic, her mother is ailing on her deathbed, and the children at her school bully her cruelly. Adapted from a novel by French author Georges Bernanos, Mouchette is a poetic examination of a young girl's misery while she lives an empty life exempt from happiness. In Mouchette, Bresson's final film in black-and-white, the director paints a portrait of a young woman ( Nadine Nortier) who suffers at the hands of the cruel society around her. A heavy influence on Paul Schrader’s scripts for Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, and The Card Counter among others, Pickpocket remains one of Bresson’s most influential works and an exceptional introduction to his filmography. Instead, it uses objectivity in its direct style, diminishing the emotion in its actors’ performances to allow the viewer to see its events more clearly. Are his rationalizations for his crimes just, or are his actions inexcusable? The film refuses to answer directly. Bresson largely leaves the judgment up to the viewer. Pickpocket acknowledges the moral trickiness of Michel while neither praising nor condemning him. Bresson often took an interest in filming hands as they performed their various actions, and it’s here that this technique is used to its fullest extent. It often feels like a documentary on the actual pickpockets of France, informing the viewer with a sort of clinical observation on how the act is carried out. Each is masterfully edited, heightening suspense while portraying quite plainly how the pickpockets get away with their crime. The film has an exceptional ability to capture its sequences of thievery. Martin LaSalle stars as Michel, an impoverished petty criminal who becomes swept up in the underground world of pickpocketing in order to raise enough money to pursue his dreams. Bresson explores the ambiguity of morality in his excellent 1959 film Pickpocket.
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