Bicycle Thieves - Film Review

   Bicycle thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948) is a dramatic tale written by Luigi Bortolini. The Italian movie was well structured, emotionally engaging with audiences. The setting lets audiences indulge with the film because of how the setting and background is being presented. The story has been influenced with Italian Neorealism. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the movie in terms of the neorealism theory and other film elements or aspects involved throughout the product presented.

   To begin with the discussion, Italian Neorealism has to be understood in further. Italian Neorealism was founded in 1942 by Cesare Zavatinni. The reason behind the unique style back then was to break the cliché method of film making. Neorealism technique involves real environmental story telling techniques. In conjunction to the technique, real people were acting as the roles needed and real settings and background were used instead of stage plays and studios. For example, in the 1940s, in midst of the World War, people were facing hardship due to economic crisis. That portrayal has been well portrayed in this film where, Antonio Ricci gets unemployed and is forced to take any job that is offered. Besides that, the usage of bicycle as their medium of transportation solely explains the situation during that era. Furthermore, this way of filmmaking involves a more melodramatic plot and music for the audiences to feel the main character’s pain and follow the journey. For example, during the scenes where Ricci and his son, Bruno are in search of the stolen bicycle, the melodramatic music allows the audiences to feel more sympathy for the lost. These techniques were more effective and more engaging between the filmmakers and the audiences which then travelled to the Chinese and Indian film industries across the globe.

   Bicycle thieves is simply about people facing crisis during the post World War II. Antonio Ricci is silly, careless and irresponsible man, who is basically unemployed due to the post economic crisis and is left unemployed, leaving his family to struggle in poverty. He finally gets offered a job but with a condition which requires him to own a bicycle. He then gets a bicycle from a pawnshop to fulfill the requirements and starts his job. The conflict starts when his bicycle is stolen and he is left to no choice but to find a bicycle. He goes loitering around the city with various efforts trying to reach out the thief, with assistance provided by his son, Bruno. After series of attempt in pursuit of getting his bicycle, he finally gets the thief but is left to accept that he wouldn’t reach his attempt of getting back his bicycle. Yet, he doesn’t give up on the pursuit and tries to steal an unknown bicycle outside a packed stadium. During the desperation effort of him stealing, he is caught and beaten by public in front of his son and the movie reaches the end mark with a hanging, sad ending.

   To analyze this film in depth, we have to begin with the film technique applied, Neorealism. Vittorio De Sica has brilliantly executed the fresh attempt of filmmaking technique by firstly using non actors in the film. For example, all but just for one actor, who played the contractor assigning people for jobs was an professional actor. It takes serious efforts and patience for a director to present a movie and emotions through a non-actor. Besides that, the setting being real environmental was a brilliant idea by him to allow the audiences to feel and engage to the situation due to the post crisis being faced among all people during the era. In conjunction to that, the ambience were as original as the real scenario portraying poverty, hardship struggle and pessimism which could allow the audience to collect moral values from a film. Vittorio De Sica also used some representation techniques in the making of the film. For example, when Ricci dines with Bruno in the restaurant and drinks water, imagining it to be wine. Besides that, Bruno wanting to eat like the rich boy looking at him in the restaurant is well presented emotionally by Enzo Staiola, who isn’t a professional actor. In terms of the plot structure, it is obvious that Vittorio De Sica was more into the techniques during the production and did not attempt with something new for the storyline. The common traditional 3 act structure is applied in this storytelling effort. The first act involves with the introduction of the character and his backstory, which then follows with the conflict which is the 2^nd act, where his bicycle gets stolen, then the resolving action of Ricci finding back the bicycle, which is the third act in the structure.

   For the final words of this essay, it is definitely not new for us to witness such storyline being in the current era, but it would’ve definitely given us a fresh effect if brought back in time, during the post crisis timeline. Cesare Zavatinni’s attempt should definitely influencing the techniques being followed by Vittorio De Sica in the making of this film. Apart from that, De Sica’s way of engaging the feel and emotions with the audiences definitely deserves a standing ovation because he did not attempt a new film technique with professional actors but real people. Overall, the expectation of the current era’s audiences would’ve definitely not matched if compared to film in the current time but focusing on the fresh era of film making, this movie is definitely one of the best.

References ;

  (Bradshaw, 2008) Bicycle Thieves. Retrieved from; https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/dec/19/film-review-bicycle-theives