Relationships do not exist in vacuum. Even the most mundane of them are influenced by so many factors--some minor, some major.
This axiom is often so forgotten in our lives that when someone like Vittorio De Sica comes along and creates a little visual treat with his own understanding of it, we are overwhelmed with insights, followed by more questions and then more insights into human nature.
Last night, when I was watching this 1948 Italian classic, it was for the second time in as many months since I bought the DVD. Without doubt watching it was one of the most poignant, yet pleasurable, activities I have ever come across in the field of movie-watching. In the back of my mind was the lingering question: Why can't we take a leaf off the books of such filmmakers as De Sica.
Set in Rome during the Great Depression of the 1920s, the movies starts off on a pleasant note, wherein the desperate Antonio Ricci, a father of two in Rome, finds a job for himself: Sticking cinema posters. The only qualification required for the job is to own a bicycle. As luck would have it, Antonio has pawned his.
He, however, manages to reclaim it – thanks to his industrious – wife, Maria, who pawns her wedding bedspreads for Antonio’s sake.
In high spirits and full of hope of a better tomorrow, thanks to the decent pay expected from the newfound job, Antonio sets off the next morning along with his son, the simply adorable little Bruno, who also works as an attender at a petrol pump.
Within minutes of Ricci commencing his work, his cycle is stolen by a gang three who throw a momentary web of deception and misdirection to rob Antonio of his hopes.
Determined, however, to get back his bicycle – a Fide make of 1935 – Antonio, along with his son and couple of friends set off on a desperate search for the cycle, which they predict would have reached Rome’s flea market by the next morning.
Thus begins the long march of the father-son duo.
Taking us through the alleys and bylanes of Rome of the bygone years, this search resembles the march of a virtuous and duty-bound leader (Antonio, the father) and his follower (Bruno, the son).
Bruno simply follows Antonio, waiting for the emotion to spread on Antonio’s face to himself wear the same. He is shown always looking at his father’s face – in the process “looking up to him” – for the next step.
Yet, they obviously fail to trace the bike. Even after the thief is spotted, cornered and the police summoned, Antonio fails to press charges for lack of evidence – with Bruno almost playing the righteous son coming to his dad’s assistance whenever needed.
In one last act of desperation to keep his job, Antonio, after relieving his son of his duties and asking him to wait at a particular spot, tries to steal a bicycle himself and is caught – right before the eyes of his son, who misses the streetcar he was supposed to board.
Bruno, who hitherto looked up to his father for directions (symbolically, in life too perhaps), is shocked and distraught when his father is chased, caught and humiliated right before his eyes.
The kind owner of the bike avoids pressing charges against Antonio and just leaves it at that. Yet, Antonio is “fallen” in many senses.
However, at the end, just before beginning the long walk back home, Bruno picks up Antonio’s ‘fallen’ hat and hands it back to him—perhaps another symbolism for the son redeeming the father’s dignity.
Listed as the sixth best movie of all time, Bicycle Thieves is a textbook for good cinema. With no major props or visual wizardry, this movie is about pure and simple story-telling. Yet the profundity of it seeps into us and leaves a certain warmth that the most flamboyant of movies fail to do.
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