1948 Italian, 8.3 /10, YouTube, Directed by Vittorio De Sica
Italian Neo-realism of unemployment and the hardships of the working class people after the world wars, catches your attention and leaves a void in the viewer’s mind, through realistic depictions of the mammoth ordeals of people after the man made wars.
The film opens to a group of men longing to hear from the employment office for a job offer. The backdrop of the film captures subtly the war-rummaged City of Rome, evidently throughout the movie as it is predominately shot outdoors.
The film focuses on a working-class family of Antonio, and the family’s turmoil in surviving the post war crisis. Antonio is offered a job for which a cycle is mandatory and he pawns his household things to buy a bicycle. He joins with pride in his job of putting up posters on the city walls but to his dismay his cycle is stolen in front of his eyes and the rest of the story is how he tries to get back his bicycle.
Antonio says, he feels like ‘a man in chains’ and that’s the frustration the war has brought to him. The big line at the pawn shop and the barter system of used goods, is throwing light on the living conditions of the people. Children begging on street is against the law but they are left with no choice.
The shot when he chases the thief, the view from under the tunnel, where the city looks brighter compared to the darkness where they stand, it seems to symbolizes that their lives are in the dark. It does looks like the light at the end of the tunnel from where they are standing. The dialogues, ‘the subsidy being no solution and welfare check humiliate the workers’ -explicitly express the appalling condition of the people.
Poverty directly proportional to the increased crime rate is also visualized with the huge black market for stolen cycles. When the thief’s mom asks the police officer to get him a job instead of accusing him, it reflects that they are forced to switch to crime for livelihood.
‘There is a cure for everything except death’, indicates the tiny ray of hope that is deep down amidst all frustration that the war imposed. That’s the same hope that takes him to the fortune teller lady, the one that he mocked his god-fearing wife of doing earlier.
Antonio’s son Bruno, helps his dad in following the leads to reach the thief, as he is fonder of his dad’s new bicycle. The expedition of the duo is unbelievably touchy and you root them to get back the bicycle. But when they both fail, Antonio in desperation does things that he will be ashamed of later, but Bruno, scores with his mighty expressions in standing by his father. His tiny hand holding his dad’s, in the closing frame, speaks for the relationship they share and the audience are left speechless.
The core plot might be lifted by Director Vetrimaran, for his outing with his 2007 Pollathavan, in Tamil, but both the films belong to different spheres of treatment and executions. Kudos to the tamil director though for trying authentically to explore and recreate the core plot with due respect.
Must watch.