Film: Bicycle Thieves
Year of production: 1948
UK Release date: 18th April 2011
Distributor: Arrow
Certificate: U
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Starring: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Gino Saltamerenda, Vittorio Antonucci
Genre: Crime/Drama
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Italy
Language: Italian
Review by: Kevin Ilett
Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 masterpiece Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di Biciclette) is widely regarded as the pinnacle achievement of the Italian neorealist movement, perhaps matched only by Rosellini’s Rome, Open City. The trend’s defining characteristics, such as nonprofessional actors, storylines focused on the poor and working class, and a focus on the sociological strains of post-war ravaged Italy are most successfully crystallised in Vittorio De Sica’s poetic portrait of a man and his son, and their desperate search for a stolen bicycle. The movement lasted less than a decade (around 1943-1952), but the impact of these films, and Bicycle Thieves in particular, can be felt as strongly as ever.
In a Rome still reeling from the brutal effects of war, unemployment is scarce and poverty rampant. Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani) is overjoyed, then, to find work putting up film posters, on condition that he retrieves his bicycle from the pawnbrokers. To find the money, his wife Maria (Lianella Carell) pawns the entire family’s stock of bed sheets, but the promise of a steady income brings the family short-lived happiness. On his first shift out, as he is working up his ladder, Antonio’s bicycle is stolen by a street thief.
Accompanied by his stoical son Bruno (Enzo Staiola), Antonio spends the rest of the film frantically searching for the bike in the crumbling alleyways and amongst the impoverished denizens of the beleaguered Italian capital. Black markets, brothels, churches and fortune-tellers are all visited by the pair, with an increasingly hopeless desperation, and there are unbearable sequences of despair and humiliation for the father in front of his devoted son...
De Sica’s Rome, filmed contemporaneously and on location, is a stunning and fascinating snapshot of a specific historical moment. Bombed-out buildings are not at the centre of the piece, never dwelled upon by the camera’s eye, but they present a decaying backdrop of ruin that remains both haunting and poignant. The damaged setting reflects the broken dreams and tragic lives of its protagonists, a none-too-subtle motif, but one which De Sica wisely keeps on the periphery. Instead, the director keeps his focus firmly on the twisting fortunes of his heroic twosome, and, fortunately, it is not just Bicycle Thieves’ backdrop which is impressive. Both non-professionals, Lamberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiola are complete revelations as father and son respectively. The faded grief, dashed hopes and desperation of an entire dejected nation are etched on Maggiorani’s endlessly watchable face. Considering his lack of training, it’s a tour de force of frustration and humiliation, gradually rising from exasperation to hopeless panic.
Staiola is similarly marvellous as the boy grown up too fast, but still retaining a certain youthful innocence. In his positive devotion and playful incorruptibility, Bruno represents a potential future for the nation which can transcend its bleak present. Clearly the film’s message is that despite losing his bicycle, Antonio has something much more important - his son - but De Sica gives short shrift to such simplistic sentimental notions. Father regularly misplaces son, often humorously so, and at one point even believes he may have drowned.
Afterwards, they dine on an expensive meal they cannot afford, but it’s a small moment of triumph. Despite everything, they are still human, can still experience joy as much as pain. Despite being characterised as a desolate filmic experience, the scene displays a rebellious amusement in the face of an existentialist crisis. “You live and you suffer,” says Antonio, “why should I kill myself worrying when I’ll end up just as dead?”
Elsewhere, the false prophet-worshipping of fortune-tellers is ridiculed, surely a thinly-veiled humanist attack on religion. The woman takes Antonio’s money but offers no helpful guidance or support. Rather than making the situation better, she only worsens Antonio’s problems.
For De Sica, Italy’s post-war problems could not be solved by hiding from the harsh truths. Neorealism has been criticised for ignoring wider political and thematic concerns, but the day-to-day existence for many at this time was one of turmoil and suffering and, by focusing on the human story, the film sheds an important light on genuine suffering.
Bicycle Thieves is a triumph of humanist drama. It fuses the main thematic concerns of Italian neorealism to paint a devastating picture of man weighed down by the harsh forces of his time. Filmed intimately and authentically yet with great care, elegance and technical skill, De Sica also pulls out two fantastic central performances. Although Italy, and indeed cinema, has long moved on from this context, Bicycle Thieves is still a profoundly moving picture, and its study of human nature still universally pertinent. KI
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