201. The Bicycle Thief (Ladri Di Biciclete) (1948)

Directed By Vittorio De Sica

Synopsis

A guy needs a bike for his work, he gets it out of the pawn shop and it gets stolen on his first day. Doh! He and his kid go around Rome looking for it. The never find it. Doh!

Review

Italian neo-realism can be a bit of a hit and miss affair, the reliance on non-professional actors demands quite a bit of luck and de Sica had all the luck he needed here. There are only two real main characters and they are both excellent, the kid is particularly good. It is hard to find non-annoying child actors, and the fact that he was just a kid avoids that inflated child-ego which makes them all punch-worthy.

So like all neo-realist films it is touching in its realistic portrayals of human emotions, actually, like most Italian cinema it is a thoroughly depressive affair. While the main character is in a really shit economic situation the fact is that most of the people he meets when he tries to get his bike back are actually in a worse situation than himself.

Eventually towards the end of the film the main character creates a mirror image of what happened to him by attempting to steal a richer person's bike. This doesn't work out for the best however and the open ending of father and son crying in the middle of the crowd leaving the football game is a powerful one. Another film Hollywood would never make.

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Bosley Crowther, film critic for The New York Times, lauded the film and its message in his review. He wrote, "Again the Italians have sent us a brilliant and devastating film in Vittorio De Sica's rueful drama of modern city life, The Bicycle Thief. Widely and fervently heralded by those who had seen it abroad (where it already has won several prizes at various film festivals), this heart-tearing picture of frustration, which came to the [World Theater] yesterday, bids fair to fulfill all the forecasts of its absolute triumph over here. For once more the talented De Sica, who gave us the shattering Shoe Shine that desperately tragic demonstration of juvenile corruption in post-war Rome, has laid hold upon and sharply imaged in simple and realistic terms a major—indeed, a fundamental and universal—dramatic theme. It is the isolation and loneliness of the little man in this complex social world that is ironically blessed with institutions to comfort and protect mankind."

Kids need wine too: