Click image to purchase

Italy Italian Neo-Realism Poverty

Is one of the first of the Italian Neo-Realist films and certainly one of the most powerful and influential. It begins with shots of men walking through the city. A crowd of men stands at the bottom of a flight of stone steps while a man holding a bit of paper calls for someone named Antonio Ricci. A man breaks from the crowd and runs across the street to where Ricci is sitting and hustles him back to the stairs. Antonio is thrilled to find that he's been assigned a job after a year of unemployment and that he'll be issued a work permit to hang posters. Antonio's job depends on the fact that he owns a bicycle. When Ricci protests that his is broken and the man on the stairs threatens to give the job to someone else, Ricci's bicycle magically repairs itself and he heads off to retrieve it.

Antonio finds Maria in a crowd of women in line to draw water from a communal well. When she finishes he tells her that he's gotten a job but won't be able to take it and simply walks away. Maria chases him down the street demanding to know what he's talking about. The two argue for a while because Antonio has "foolishly" hocked his bicycle and, back at the apartment, an angry Maria strips the linens from the bed and tosses them into a washtub.

Cut to Antonio and Maria as they argue over the price of used sheets with the local pawnbroker. Antonio does manage to get his bicycle out of hock and even manages to make it to the office in time to get his new job. He and Maria make for a happy couple as they ride away down the street. On the way home, Maria asks to visit a local fortune teller; she owes the woman fifty lire.

The next morning, little Bruno is up, bright and early, polishing the bicycle and a happy Antonio kisses a happy Maria goodbye then rolls happily down the street to go hang posters. Just as Antonio's finished his training and is hanging his very first solo poster, a man snatches his bicycle and takes off with it. Antonio heroically gives chase but the vile criminal loses him on the crowded streets. The police aren't impressed with his misfortune and not all that interested in helping Antonio find his stolen bicycle so, Antonio is forced to search for it on his own.

That night he stops in at a local theater to enlist the aid of a man named Baiocco. Maria shows up while he's there and he's forced to tell her about the bicycle. Despite Baiocco's assurances, an unhappy couple leaves the theater to head back home. The next morning sees a small group of men searching Rome for a bicycle that they're convinced has been taken apart and sold to various dealers. Not only are they looking for a wheeled needle in a haystack, they're looking for it piece by piece. This search continues for quite some time, the men check out various shops, wander around in the rain and Bruno falls into the rainwater that's pooled near a curb.

While we're following Antonio around the city we're introduced us to all sorts of interesting characters and given a nice tour of Rome circa 1948. Along the way, Antonio learn a few things about his boy, quite a bit about his fellow man and a lot about himself. This is a very nifty, very simple and very human story that's fleshed out beautifully with some great performances by non-professional actors, great cinematography and some really wonderful direction. De Sica gets a great deal of depth out of something that, in the hands of a lesser director, might otherwise be boring and trite.