MattFlix is pleased to present In Plain Sight (2015), by Sarah Dobai.

In Plain Sight is a single channel video featuring scenes based closely on passages from Robert Bresson’s celebrated film Pickpocket (1959) where the protagonist is seen learning the techniques of illusion, misdirection and sleight of hand used by street pickpockets.

In Plain Sight was conceived in the wake of the 2008 financial crash and the common use of corporate misdirection and sleight of hand that this uncovered. Using Bresson’s film in an instructional way, the artist worked with actors in the studio to rehearse and perform techniques employed by thieves.

Being shot in colour rather than black & white, Dobai’s film departs from Bresson’s. A subtitled voiceover introduced by the artist, written from the point of view of the main protagonist, highlights the intimate and invasive qualities of the act of theft. In Plain Sight pivots around the deception, enactment and mimicry at play not only in the figure of the pickpocket and the actor, but the making of the film itself.

The first screening of the work at L'été photographique de Lectoure, France, was accompanied by a live reading of the script, a recorded version of which has been used for the voiceover.

The film was originally commissioned by Catsou Roberts for L'été photographique de Lectoure.