My Unofficial Amateur Review of The Bicycle Thief

Today I watched The Bicycle Thief or Ladri di Biciclette (1948) by Vittorio De Sica. I have wanted to watch this film ever since my film history class, in which we watched films from Rosselini, Fellini (La Strada)...etc and this film always came up somewhere in the discussion. So today I finally watched it.

I have to say it quickly rose to one of my top favorites. I still couldn't believe that I cried at the very end. Ok I have to backtrack first. At first it was just another black-and-white Italian film for me. I can still remember the segment that my professor showed us about how de sica, and many of the Neorealist directors, would sometimes move the camera away from the main characters and instead follows random background characters even while the main actors are talking. It was interesting.

And then when the father realizes that his son was more important than the bicycle and he brought the son to a restaurant to eat, that was heartwarming and I thought it would be a good wrapping-up, if it were a Hollywood film. But then the father still somehow insisted on getting a bicycle, to the point that he tried to steal one. Then, when he got caught and was released because the crying son won over the crowd, the camera focused on his hand holding tight onto the son's hand. But that wasn't heartwarming this time. Dad had done a shameful thing, and the son shared the shame as well. The real thief (who was the cause of this whole mess) got no blame and the helpless who turned into a thief out of necessity got all the blame. There IS no hope. Tears just welled up to my eyes at that point. I think I was probably relating to the son. But then the two just looked so hopeless that I got a little depressed myself.

I can read that the director was trying to say that there was no hope for Italy. Because it was during the war when the film was made?
But then I think the hopelessness also would apply to many other countries, even nowadays. I even felt somehow the hopelessness of mankind. And sensing that at the end of the film just made me so sad.

But I have to say the little boy in the film is such a good actor! He gets lots of props for making this film so moving. Sometimes he makes us laugh and other times makes us cry. He is just so adorable AND heartbreaking.

Anyway I can rant on forever... But I will stop here. I think I will watch something totally different now. I want to believe that life is full of color and it's not so bad to be a human being after all.