Visual beauty of 'The Bicycle Thief'
Samodh THAVEESHA
I can hardly recall I have ever seen a movie like 'The Bicycle Thief'
by Vittorio de Sica! I always enjoy the colour movies than the
black-and-whites, but this one is a clear exception.
When you have finished watching it, you will sure feel a lot for
Ricci, the main character, or for Bruno, his son. It is like reading a
moving short story bestowed with an everlasting or ageless impact plus
experience.
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Poster of ‘The Bicycle Thief’ |
'The Bicycle Thief' is a masterpiece of frustration, dreams fading
away, your response towards them and how your frustration affects your
children who always scrutinize you with their little eyes. This film
will undoubtedly make you understand the mentality of the frustrated and
the irrational acts or serious blunders they commit as a result.
Ricci, the unemployed main character, suddenly gets a profitable job
of laying posters for a theatre for which the possession of a bicycle is
compulsory. To ensure he gets the job, Ricci buys a bicycle pawning his
bed sheets. But on the very second day his bicycle is stolen. The movie
there onwards reveals his desperate series of attempts with his little
son Bruno to find out the bicycle.
They at last find the person who they think is the thief. But a
policeman sets him free because there is no sufficient evidence. This
makes Ricci utterly helpless and reveals his unconscious personal
responses to the frustration which leads him to slap his own innocent
son for showing a fault in one of his actions. But soon he realizes his
fault and carries Bruno to have some food in a nearby restaurant. Ricci
pays a visit to a prophetic woman as well whom he earlier deprived his
wife to attend before losing his bicycle. Having no alternative, Ricci
tries to steal a bicycle and gets caught but is discharged because its
owner lets him free. So Ricci becomes the bicycle 'thief'.
'The Bicycle Thief' vividly brings out how desperation makes you to
lose all your senses, faculties, stability and convictions and leads to
further and further into trouble reminding John Donne's renowned phrase,
"...but come bad chance,
And wee joyne to'it our strength,
And wee teach it art and length,
It selfe o'er us to advance.'
De Sica employs the character of the little boy Bruno to a great
effect and portrays him as a victim of the adult-frustration in which
his honest attitude, sensitivity, helpfulness are all neglected by his
own beloved father.
'The Bicycle Thief' reflects a perfect realistic portrayal of the
poverty-stricken contemporary Italy and shows the predicament of the
people living at that time while presenting the personal conflicts as
well. It's not on the individuals De Sica places his indictment. The
movie is universal in its themes and in the intellectual impact it
generates. Try it out..., it will be a memorable experience for you for
the dramatic way it presents the social and personal issues. A
masterpiece for the enlightenment.........! |
