The Bicycle Thief
The Bicycle Thief by Vittorio De Sica is a movie that breaks the Hollywood aesthetic of beautiful people, fancy homes, and extensive wealth that only thrives in fantasy and sometimes-unconquerable dreams. It exploits the plight of working class individuals who live in what some may call ghettoes or over crowded cities. Standing outside of a government agency, men await the fates of their futures: will it be their day to get work or will they go home in defeat to tell their wives and children that they might not have enough money to eat? It is a travesty to envision a life that is lived moment to moment and the future holds no promise for a better tomorrow. It is striking to watch a movie that encapsulates the very heart of the working class. The audience is introduced to the movie's central character, Antonio. A man who is in search of a job and the one he receives requires a mode of transportation common in those days, a bicycle. The bicycle he owns is in a repair shop waiting for alterations to be done, but because of the lack of money his family has, he never acquired the opportunity to pay for it. He then journeys back home to his wife, his son, and his
Struggling to make ends meet is never an easy task, but to remain positive and to remember what is important in life, like love and family is extremely valuable. However, watching Antonio and his son Bruno interact and communicate with each other rendered a compassion from me that may have otherwise stayed dormant knowing the common relationships between father and son at that time. First day on the job the bicycle gets stolen, crisis becomes the inevitable. A tribute to those that make up the bulk of society, to those almost always forgotten, and to those who are hardly recognized for the achievements they have made, The Bicycle Thief exemplifies the life that most people are accustomed to. A father was a disciplinary figure and almost an intangible person because of the fact that he is a man. What also stuck me as fascinating was the relationship between father and son. "The Bicycle Thief is a searing allegory of the human condition, a caustic narrative of despair and hope, loss and redemption, poignantly told in subtle actions and spare words" (Acquarello, 1). Antonio's attitude in the restaurant embodies this credo. Authority figures appeared beyond the reach of the common people to the point where their complaints were as loud as the sound of a pin dropping in the middle of a forest. Medina 3that they had for each other. Maria, his wife, decides to pawn their precious linens, apart of her dowry, in order to retrieve Antonio's bicycle from the shop. The Bicycle Thief conveyed to me; that times may become rough and sometimes it is hard to see through the smoke of a blazing fire, love endures and is the only thing that will survive disaster. Even though it appeared all hope was lost in retrieving the bicycle, one thing was for sure they would always have each other.
Common topics in this essay:
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