DVD Review: THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED

This past decade has seen a decline in most facets of American independent cinema. Arguably the one real growth, change or movement would be that of the so called "mumblecore" crowd; an inter connected slew of young filmmakers that share the burden of making no to low budget features, primarily shot on video, usually about the trials and tribulations of twentysomthing relationships. Hipster junk some might say.

I'm by no means an expert on "mumblecore" but I can say with some confidence that Josh Safdie's 16mm feature The Pleasure Of Being Robbed is not mumblecore, re-modernist cinema or "New Sincerity" as some might dub it. Safdie and his filmmaking collective "Red Bucket" are having way too much fun making their own little world to probably even remotely care about movements, or categorization... thank god.

The only American film to play the 2008 director's fortnight at Cannes, The Pleasure Of Being Robbed made a brief US theatrical appearance later that year in New York and on IFC's on demand service. Soon enough it was gone and a DVD release was nowhere in sight.
No doubt due to the Sundance premiere of Safdie and Red Bucket's second feature, Daddy Longlegs, IFC has now finally released their first on region 1 DVD, and it is certainly something to celebrate.

Eleonore Hendricks plays Eléonore, a young lady who happens to be a kleptomaniac. The film covers a few days in her life, stumbling around New York City like a happy drunken 8-year old, with a subsequent road trip/detour to Boston. That's pretty much all the plot you're going to string from this lean, little 70 minute film.

Eléonore's kleptomania isn't off putting in the least. In a way it is rather charming, a little sad, and always amusing. So yes, indeed, it is pleasurable to watch, although I'm not sure any of her victims find it pleasurable. She's a girl starved for attention, in need of constant entertainment, and wants to connect with the world around her in anyway possible.

The film is too loose to be concerned with the nature of things, to have a commentary or agenda. That is to say it is very child like and spontaneous. And yet it is tightly focused on creating an authentic world, rooted in emotion and happenstance, something of the moment, to where there are times where you aren't even sure if some of the stuff the filmmakers are doing is scripted or even partially staged. There is an energy here that reminded me of Chaplin or Keaton without the prat falls and stunts, and most certainly the playfulness, but not the design construct, of Jacques Tati. Although these allusions or homages, if there at all, are just brushes of almost ambiguous suggestion. Safdie is not bowing down to the filmmaking gods, he's just having fun playing in their realm, totally unabashed, without pretension. 

Some choice moments include the first scene where Eléonore shouts out a whole bunch of names to a lady across the street until she gets the woman's name right, subsequently gives the taken-a-back woman a hug, chats her up, and steals her purse.  A hand cuffed excursion to the Central Park Zoo leads to a fantasy sequence with a polar bear and... I better stop there as I really don't want to dilute the spontaneity and delight of the film.

Shot mostly hand held by Brett Jutkiewicz and Safdie on 16mm, the transfer looks great on the HD set I watched it on, considering... film grain is intact, and there appears to be little boosting or adjusting to make it feel "more video".

Supplemental features include two short films made by the Red Bucket collective. Reminiscent of the feature in their whimsy, it is clear Safdie likes road trips.
A handful of short-shorts made during the feature's shoot are cute, and finally a rather unusual commentary track is included. This commentary is a musical track made by the filmmakers and a collection of musicians, which overlays the film with a sort-of cacophonous urban Greek chorus, something the viewer will either find rather cool and inventive or somewhat annoying... or as with me, a bit both. It is though, like the overall film, an example of being in the moment with your art and just doing it, living in the joy and delight of creating.