Ladri di biciclette

“It always rains on Sundays.” This remark made by Antonio Ricci perfectly summarises his grim outlook on life. The man just seems to be born unlucky. Antonio has finally found a job after two long years of unemployment, but he needs a bicycle to do his job. Antonio and his family scrape together the last of their money to buy one. When his bike is stolen on the first day on the job, Antonio and his young son Bruno go out in search of the thief.

Vittorio De Sica’s masterpiece tells a simple story about poverty during post-war Italy and about how that untenable reality struck many families. Through a haze of misfortune, there does remain a ray of hope, shining in the eyes of little Bruno, when he looks up at his fathers Antonio. Always with a gaze that shows his adoration of his hero. De Sica’s BICYCLE THIEVES was shot in the streets of Rome with non-professional actors. Lamberto Maggiorani, who plays Anonio, was a factory worker. Enzo Staiola, who plays Bruno, was picked from a crowd which had gathered to watch the shoot, because De Sica had started filming before he cast the role of Bruno. The film is one of the key works of Italian neorealism, equally delicate and linked to a grim time, as universal.

The film is so beloved by filmmakers, critics and movie lovers, that it was crowned best movie on the inaugural Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time-poll in 1952. And the film is still worth the worship. Italian poet Attilio Bertolucci sums it up beautifully: “It’s Sunday in Rome, with sun and rain, soup kitchens and rough neighbourhoods, markets and trattorias, and this father and son cross the city in one of the most moving walks in film history.”