Country: FR
Technical: bw 76m
Director: Robert Bresson
Cast: Martin LaSalle, Marika Green, Pierre Leymarie
Synopsis:
An aimless young man, who believes in nothing, steals to finance his meagre existence, eventually joining forces with a brace of professional pickpockets. His steadfast friend, a police inspector and his dying mother's nextdoor neighbour, an attractive young woman, all attempt to divert him from a self-destructive course.
Review:
Bresson's take on the dividing line between sin and law-breaking posits a special kind of redemption in the fact that the protagonist, who seems like Raskolnikov to consider himself above the law, finds love with the madonna-like Jeanne in the end. His use of unschooled actors as his 'modèles' brought two new performers to the profession (La Salle and Green), and he employed the services of a veritable pickpocket (Kassagi), resulting in breathtaking sequences of hands interacting. Bresson's protagonist, addicted to 'incertitude', operates as if in a daze, desperately hiding his inner turmoil, his moments of weakness enobled by bursts of J-B Lully. The film was a touchstone for Paul Schrader and is the most Hitchcockian of Bresson's works.
Country: FR
Technical: bw 76m
Director: Robert Bresson
Cast: Martin LaSalle, Marika Green, Pierre Leymarie
Synopsis:
An aimless young man, who believes in nothing, steals to finance his meagre existence, eventually joining forces with a brace of professional pickpockets. His steadfast friend, a police inspector and his dying mother's nextdoor neighbour, an attractive young woman, all attempt to divert him from a self-destructive course.
Review:
Bresson's take on the dividing line between sin and law-breaking posits a special kind of redemption in the fact that the protagonist, who seems like Raskolnikov to consider himself above the law, finds love with the madonna-like Jeanne in the end. His use of unschooled actors as his 'modèles' brought two new performers to the profession (La Salle and Green), and he employed the services of a veritable pickpocket (Kassagi), resulting in breathtaking sequences of hands interacting. Bresson's protagonist, addicted to 'incertitude', operates as if in a daze, desperately hiding his inner turmoil, his moments of weakness enobled by bursts of J-B Lully. The film was a touchstone for Paul Schrader and is the most Hitchcockian of Bresson's works.
