Bicycle Thieves
Post WW2 Italy was a bitter time, with many doing anything they could to make ends meet and to feed families. Poverty and despair reigned. Many directors of the time turned to filming these times to accurately capture and portray these bleak moments.
This film captures that moment in time perhaps the most accurately. The story of a man who is hired for a job, much to his family’s relief. A job that pays well, but requires him to ride a bike to get to each location. All is good. Until a thief steals his bike. Desperate he sets out to find it along with his young song.
That’s it. That’s the plot. It’s so simple, yet there’s a richness to it. It isn’t just merely a search for his bike. It’s about survival. Without that bike, things will go from bad to worse in no time for him and his family. He knows this. The bike is a means to a better life.
De Sica has a way of drawing you in with an almost effortlessness, as you start to pity the poor man. He has been beaten down by life and circumstance. Desperation gnaws at him as the day grows late. Time isn’t on his side. I kept asking myself when and how he will get his bike back. Surely, he must right?
Without spoiling anything, De Sica goes with the right ending. And it left me hollow, as “fin” appeared so suddenly.
My jaw literally open. Film makers today wouldn’t dare consider such an ending. It’s so powerful without really trying to be.
I can’t decide if this is better then Shoeshine (De Sica’s earlier film, with the same theme but dealing with juvenile delinquents in post WW2 Italy). Shoeshine is probably the more “polished” film, but Bicycle Thieves is slightly more powerful. Both were tragic in their own way.
They’d definitely make a great double feature.
Italian Neorealism has become probably my favorite of the film movements. It’s certainly up there with French New Wave and Japanese New Wave, but above Taiwanese New Wave if the 1980’s, which owed a great debt to Neorealism. The similarities are plain to see.
As is the influence.
Post WW2 Italy was a bitter time, with many doing anything they could to make ends meet and to feed families. Poverty and despair reigned. Many directors of the time turned to filming these times to accurately capture and portray these bleak moments.
This film captures that moment in time perhaps the most accurately. The story of a man who is hired for a job, much to his family’s relief. A job that pays well, but requires him to ride a bike to get to each location. All is good. Until a thief steals his bike. Desperate he sets out to find it along with his young song.
That’s it. That’s the plot. It’s so simple, yet there’s a richness to it. It isn’t just merely a search for his bike. It’s about survival. Without that bike, things will go from bad to worse in no time for him and his family. He knows this. The bike is a means to a better life.
De Sica has a way of drawing you in with an almost effortlessness, as you start to pity the poor man. He has been beaten down by life and circumstance. Desperation gnaws at him as the day grows late. Time isn’t on his side. I kept asking myself when and how he will get his bike back. Surely, he must right?
Without spoiling anything, De Sica goes with the right ending. And it left me hollow, as “fin” appeared so suddenly.
My jaw literally open. Film makers today wouldn’t dare consider such an ending. It’s so powerful without really trying to be.
I can’t decide if this is better then Shoeshine (De Sica’s earlier film, with the same theme but dealing with juvenile delinquents in post WW2 Italy). Shoeshine is probably the more “polished” film, but Bicycle Thieves is slightly more powerful. Both were tragic in their own way.
They’d definitely make a great double feature.
Italian Neorealism has become probably my favorite of the film movements. It’s certainly up there with French New Wave and Japanese New Wave, but above Taiwanese New Wave if the 1980’s, which owed a great debt to Neorealism. The similarities are plain to see.
As is the influence.