Review of The Pleasure of Being Robbed

I think that this unusual film is beautifully made but has some glaring faults. The film is basically a portrait (and this is why there is no clearly defined plot)of a young woman trying to fill her empty life with consumer goods or whatever they represent to her and voyeurism and this is something that many if not most of us do on a daily basis. Eleonore is different in that she seeks these things at the bottom of a strangers handbag. She is clearly not stealing for money as is obvious from the scene in the bar. The candid style places us in the position of voyeuristically observing her and this is interesting up to a point but clearly and editing process must have been employed and what was left out could have been more interesting than what was left in. For example, what happened to the kittens? Did she just leave them to fend for themselves when she went off to Boston or did she arrange for their safekeeping? Or did she just flush them down the toilet? I feel that it might have more interesting to have spent some time on this rather than watching her learn how to drive which many people can do quickly enough. I enjoyed the polar bear scene but I'm still not sure it belonged in the film. And so on. Her rummaging around in a strangers handbag as the owner looks on clearly represents a deterioration in her psychological condition (hence my summary) and I was left worrying about her future as a result, and there are few films that can engage me that personally when most films are so obviously signposted that they end up more as fairground rides than works of art.