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Obliquely based on Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Pickpocket tells the story of a Parisian thief who suffers a sort of crisis of the soul. He becomes bewildered by his actions, which are performed as an extension of his Nietzschean philosophical beliefs. Picking pockets is an expression of his will, and prison represents a cubicle of the soul. Salvation lies in the simplest of human gestures.
This article appears in August 25 • 2000.
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Marjorie Baumgarten is a film critic and contributing writer at The Austin Chronicle, where she has worked in many capacities since the paper's founding in 1981. She served as the Chronicle's Film Reviews editor for 25 years. More by Marjorie Baumgarten
