Day 139: Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Movie #88 – Bicycle Thieves (1948) - 93 min, cert U.

Antonio Ricci lives with his wife and son in abject poverty in Rome during the depression that immediately followed WWII. He is offered a job sticking posters up around the city, but the job requires a bicycle. Seeing the job as the possible key to a better life, they pawn their bed linen to raise the money to recover his bicycle which is already pawned. Unfortunately, on his first day on the job, an opportunist thief makes off with his bicycle. Antonio then spends the next few days combing the city is the desperate hope of recovering it.

When I saw this film, I didn’t really understand what it was doing in the Top 250. It didn’t seem in any way special. The acting was not particularly good and the storyline seemed to lead very slowly to an anticlimactic ending. I’ve since read other reviews which hail this as one of the greatest movies ever made, so I guess this must be another of those films that can only be fully appreciated by people who know what they’re talking about.

It’s in the neorealistic school of cinema, evidently, which means that the cast is made up of ordinary people rather than professional actors, the sets are real places, and the dialogue and action is all done as naturally as possible. This is all very well, but real life just isn’t very interesting. When I go to the cinema I want to be transported to another world where life is full of excitement and adventure. If I wanted reality, I’d stay at home and look out of the window.

Score – 2/10. I just don’t see the point of it all, I’m afraid.

Next up is 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is Kubrick’s sixth entry in the Top 100, which is two more than anyone else. I remember watching this film many years ago, but can’t recall many details.