Film Diary: Ladri di biciclette (The Bicycle Thieves) (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)

[enitharmon]

In a Rome ravaged by war, poverty is rife, jobs are scarce, and when Antonio Ricci, an honest working man, is offered a position as a bill-poster he feels himself blessed. The only problem is, without a bike he won't be offered the job, and his bike is in hock. He and his wife pawn all their sheets to get the bike back in time, but things take a dramatic turn when the bike is stolen on Ricci's first day.

From there on, Ricci and his son trawl Rome for the stolen bike. The trouble is, Rome is full of bikes. There are bikes and bits of bikes everywhere, but they are all out of Ricci's reach, and without a bike Ricci can't work. He pursues it with increasing desperation and his desperation drags him into a deadly spiral.

Where do I begin? Those who think that a film should have a strong plot should look elsewhere; there isn't one. There is the odd scuffle but in fact very little happens, not all that much is said, it's grainy and jerky and gritty, and a bit amateurish (deliberately so: the cast were all non-acting unknowns) so that it has the feel of a low-budget documentary rather than a narrative film. On the surface the story is trite: one man's search for a stolen bike. For those with eyes to see, it's a profound fable about a world in which the have-nots surrounded by wealth are sucked into frustration and desperation. It's the sort of film I'd want to make if I were a film-maker. A visual poem, but it's The Song of a Shirt more than it's Beowulf or My Last Duchess or Daffodils. And it's very beautiful.

Comments

[auroralynx.livejournal.com]

Well, if it feels grainy, jerky and gritty, that's because it's Italian neo-realism, and they were going for the least amount of movie glamor as possible. It pretty much was a low-budget documentary. The whole film was kinda draggy but worth it for the end. And the cute little kid.

[ghostfriendly.livejournal.com]

Oo, yes, a really good film to watch. Desperate everyday tradgedy, and a beautiful father-son bond, even after the father steals that bike. Really moving, with the kind of feelings that everyone will have felt.