I used to rent this movie when I was a kid over and over again, with that compulsion little kids have, of watching something 500 hundred times until they've learnt all the dialogs. I remember it scared the s**t out of me, no matter how many times I saw it. I was 7 or 8. It was on the threshold of my tolerance to horror. It was exciting to go through it again with all your friends. Saw it many years before and it had lost all its spell. It's quite frankly, a lot rubbish. However, it has that something that mesmerizes little kids, whatever it is. Probably not an accomplishment of its director, but a fortuitous by-product.
Reviews
2 Reviews
Bicycle Thieves
(1948)
Best Movie Ever
18 September 2005
Warning: Spoilers
This story displays as no other cinema's power to reveal with sheer simplicity some great truth about the human condition. For some it is a bleak movie, others say it is for euro- intellectuals, and there's even those who say it is an overrated classic for film snobs and elitists. However, this movie is so apparently simple, so deprived of tricks, artificialities, cryptic references and special effects, that it I can't understand why anyone would think this is a difficult movie to watch.
All I want to say, cuz all has been said about it, is that this movie isn't bleak or disheartening. I mean, it is, but not to the point where you want to say man is a disgusting creature, society is putrid and as Peggy Lee would say "let's pour out the booze and have a ball". Bicycle Thief also shows a great dose of hope in the end. When the protagonist fails to find any help in all the institutions (police, church, psychic) that are supposed to aid him, he finally turns himself into a thief. However, when he is caught stealing a bike, the bike's owner forgives him in a very humiliating scene. After the protagonist has lost faith in all the institutions, when he depends on the generosity of an individual, he finds an act of grace and humanity: he is forgiven, and for the first time in the film, after being betrayed by everything, he is the recipient of a generous act.
All I want to say, cuz all has been said about it, is that this movie isn't bleak or disheartening. I mean, it is, but not to the point where you want to say man is a disgusting creature, society is putrid and as Peggy Lee would say "let's pour out the booze and have a ball". Bicycle Thief also shows a great dose of hope in the end. When the protagonist fails to find any help in all the institutions (police, church, psychic) that are supposed to aid him, he finally turns himself into a thief. However, when he is caught stealing a bike, the bike's owner forgives him in a very humiliating scene. After the protagonist has lost faith in all the institutions, when he depends on the generosity of an individual, he finds an act of grace and humanity: he is forgiven, and for the first time in the film, after being betrayed by everything, he is the recipient of a generous act.
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