The Pleasure of Being Robbed

Most great reviews attempt to navigate sub-surface meanings by charting surface maneuvers, such as what a filmmaker did and how it was done. For some viewers the 16mm aspect of The Pleasure of Being Robbed is almost as important as the filmed in NYC aspect, equal also to the non-professional, naturalistic (and charismatic) actors aspect, and the natural rhythms and sounds of the city aspect. Seen a certain way these choices compose a beautiful and elegant song by the filmmaker to the subject for the audience, and with the right performer, right shots, right tempo, and right feeling, we see a real person in a city that breathes.

It's easy to find and discover main character Eléonore (Eleonore Hendricks), a lively woman alive in a living city, because Joshua Safdie, filmmaker, closely and intensely searches for her. Many features of traditional drama are stripped away, thinning the clutter between audience and film. Safdie asks Eléonore to lead and control her narrative's direction, and so the movie exists for her and because she does (exist). It becomes her. The way she extends her arm to defend herself from a car as she runs across the street to meet her friend illuminates parts of her character, vital things that expose deep-level personality traits.

16mm's reputation is weaved with low-budget woes, but its frequent, distinct use has generated a history of important reference points. Shooting in NYC on 16mm is a style associated with gritty urban reality, used for films like Shadows by John Cassavetes, Abel Ferrara's Driller Killer and Ms. 45, Basket Case, and recently Ronald Bronstein's Frownland, among others. Its use here nears romantic. The Pleasure of Being Robbed's camera is handheld and unsteady, reminding the viewer of the camera and cameraman; colors pop in a conspicuously filmic way and can remind the viewer of texture and physicality, light passing through celluloid; all about it is this sense of honesty and naturalism and a rare and intimate interaction with the filmmakers and subject. In Hollywood films seem made by machines. This is the exact opposite.

These creative decisions have certain qualities and meanings that help us understand Eléonore and her world. The film doesn't tell you everything about her, it shows you only what she does and some things that happen (the things she does are not necessarily a result of what happened), and it keeps secrets and guards solutions, and neither glorifies nor denigrates her. Eléonore's choices often seem desperate, miscalculated, or irrational, and she doesn't always do the right thing or the thing she's 'supposed' to do. The film offers a subjective realm in which you make either make decisions about what type of person Eléonore is, observe her without question and judgment, or experience life with her as she does (I prefer the latter of course).