After hearing a lot about Robert Bresson's movies, I decided to give them a shot, starting with "Pickpocket". I was quite surprised that this movie is often considered a masterpiece, because I found it disappointing. While I also haven't enjoyed some other classics made around that time, such as Godard's "Contempt", I usually acknowledge that I may have missed something in those movies, and might be willing to give them a second chance. With "Pickpocket", however, it's different: while I may also have failed to notice some things which make this film a masterpiece, I can actually point to some aspects of the movie which in my opinion were really underwhelming - contrary to movies like "Contempt" which just failed to impress or fascinate me, without leaving a feeling of bad execution.
First, the main character is really flat and I could absolutely not sympathise with him. A movie like "The Lost Weekend" by Billy Wilder, made in the preceding decade, did a much better job of making me feel empathy for someone who has a strong addiction that makes him spiral down into antisocial, self-destructive behaviour.
Then, even though I enjoyed the visual style of the movie, the pickpocketing shots felt quite clumsy to me. They are the kind of things which make you see the technical plumbing behind the movie, which prevents you (or me at least) from being fully absorbed in the movie because they remind you that this is just a fictional movie (which is fine when it's done intentionally e.g. by Lars von Trier, but that doesn't seem to be the case here). Also shattering that illusion are the dialogues, which feel like written language; I'm quite sure it was very unnatural to talk like that even in the 50s; a movie like "Antoine et Antoinette" (1947) by Jacques Becker shows everyday life in Paris, with dialogues that feel reasonably natural and are not so distant from how French people still speak today.
First, the main character is really flat and I could absolutely not sympathise with him. A movie like "The Lost Weekend" by Billy Wilder, made in the preceding decade, did a much better job of making me feel empathy for someone who has a strong addiction that makes him spiral down into antisocial, self-destructive behaviour.
Then, even though I enjoyed the visual style of the movie, the pickpocketing shots felt quite clumsy to me. They are the kind of things which make you see the technical plumbing behind the movie, which prevents you (or me at least) from being fully absorbed in the movie because they remind you that this is just a fictional movie (which is fine when it's done intentionally e.g. by Lars von Trier, but that doesn't seem to be the case here). Also shattering that illusion are the dialogues, which feel like written language; I'm quite sure it was very unnatural to talk like that even in the 50s; a movie like "Antoine et Antoinette" (1947) by Jacques Becker shows everyday life in Paris, with dialogues that feel reasonably natural and are not so distant from how French people still speak today.