Avis des critiques

Throughout his increasingly impressive body of work, Jia has cemented his status as chronicler of the internal hopes and dreams of his generation’s compatriots, without ever losing sight of the wider social circles they inhabit, and with a definite soft spot for those neglected, and abandoned by the forces of change. Xiao Wu was just a first step down a path that would be followed to its logical conclusions in The World (2004) and Still Life (2006), but what a first step it was.

Bookended by genuine documentary footage, the suggestion seems to be that the film itself is equally valid as non-fiction... Not only are we getting a window into little-seen aspects of Chinese lives (petty thievery, poverty, prostitution), we're also getting a window into a part of the nation that's rarely been captured on film, a situation that's hardly changed since Jia's success raised its profile.

An accomplished if ragged debut, Jia’s first feature, Xiao Wu (or Pickpocket), itches around restless, looking for things—an escape, maybe—with its eyes cocked at and always reigned in by the repeated traps of the social.