A Favorite: Bicycle Thieves

Vittorio De Sica's 1948 "Bicycle Thieves" aka "The Bicycle Thief" is my 12th favorite movie of all-time and my favorite film from the 40s. The story is about a father in post WWII Italy who must find his stolen bike with his son's help or else lose his job. Though "Bicycle Thieves" is often called a masterpiece of "Italian Neo-Realism"---and it certainly is in that style (using real locations, with non-actors, about post-war Italy, etc)---it is, in my opinion, more melodramatic or sentimental than other examples from the style like, say, Roberto Rossellini's "Rome, Open City" or, for that matter, his entire trilogy. Typically that is a knock on a film for me. However, like Almodovar, De Sica manages to pull it off somehow. The scenarios and the acting from the cute little boy (who often appears to be a cute little man) are a bit embellished, but, again, somehow it works throughout.

For me, one of the best things about the film is the cinematography. As I've said time and time again, I am a sucker for the tracking shot. De Sica's constantly moving camera captures the isolation and despair of his two central leads by following them through gigantic imposing buildings throughout Rome. Certain kinds of tracking shots add poetry to film, I think. (This is probably why Tarkovsky was so fond of them as he wanted to create a film poetry.) But this isn't a fluffy poem about a father and son's adventure to find a bicycle thief. The poem is mundane in both style and substance, perhaps it could be likened to a T.S. Elliot poem.

Another reason why the film is so good is because of the way De Sica is able to find, in this particular father and son story, a symbol or exemplar of life in post-war Italy more broadly. The father and son face the threat of poverty continually---the viewer is consistently on edge about just how this family will survive. Bureaucracies and faux Oracles can do nothing to help them. The father must eventually take the situation of his stolen bicycle into his own hands. Suffice it to say the film ends tragically. The influence of "Bicycle Thieves" in the history of film is really something. It has inspired everything from the the French New Wave and Satyajit Ray's "Apu Trilogy" to the even more recent Indie Film movement in the states and the Iranian New Wave movement. It's just an all-around well-made film that everyone should see at least once in their lives.

*As of the publishing of this review, it's on Netflix Instant, so, be sure to check it out soon!