If the dark core of
Le Cercle Rouge is redemption through a criminal act—meaning, the morally ambiguous situation of a good arising from a wrong—then the dark core of Bresson's
Pickpocket is a man's spiritualization through the mastery of a crime. Here the church and the saints have been replaced by the streets and crooks, and yet complete commitment to a life of crime ends at the same point as a life committed to the laws of God: holiness, grace, spiritual elongation.