In this film, unemployed Antonio Ricci follows a different path when he finally finds a pending work on war-torn Rome. One day, his bike is stolen, where Antonio will lose the job that was supposed to be to save his family. Now, Antonio must find his bike before it's too late.
De Sica carefully balances a generally tragic sensibility with a quiet undercurrent of hope, all the while sucking us into the story with the sheer urgency of the search for a stolen bicycle.
It's not hyperbole to flatly state that this is one of the all-time greats in the annals of cinema; on my own list, only Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal ranks higher when it comes to foreign-language films.
The Bicycle Thief does have a certain ramshackle simplicity, quietness, and even naivete that are not unwelcome as a change from the stunning noise, ingenuity, and sophistication of Hollywood.
It's a title you simply must watch, not necessarily for the truths it packs but rather for the bombed-out buildings of postwar Italy, peripheral details that director Vittorio De Sica insisted on.
[VIDEO ESSAY] Vittorio De Sica advanced Italian neorealist cinema in 1948 with a modest story about a family man trying to get back the bicycle that was stolen from him.
It has passages of beauty and heartbreak that suggest a genuine humanism that is all too often lacking from movies whose primary goals are to thrill, excite, or otherwise distract from life itself.
The work of screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, director Vittorio De Sica, the nonprofessional actors, and many others is so charged with a common purpose that there's no point in even trying to separate their achievements.
