Vittorio De Sica's "Bicycle Thieves" is a movie with a simple storyline that takes you witness the lives of Italian working class people in the post WWII era through their eyes andin the hands of any lesser director it would not have stood the test of time as one of the best foreign films ever made over the years. The main character in the movie is a man named Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani) who needs to find a job and then gets one but he needs a bicycle or else he can't get the job so he tells his wife Maria (Lianella Carell) about his situation and so she orders the bicycle for him and so the next morning wakes up takes his son Bruno (Enzo Staiola) to the bus stop and then goes off to work. His job is as a poster hanger and not very long into his first day on the job his bicycle is stolen and has to run around the streets of Rome to find it with the help of his son. This is a masterful portrait of the common working class father who would go to great lengths just to have food on the table and an affordable place to live in for his wife and child as well as himself. Everything about this movie just plays it straight about working class life which is something that a lot of rich, snobbish elitists would never understand unless they experienced what working people go through on a daily basis at some point in their lives while most of the time they're pampered, spoiled, ungrateful brats that don't even care about the so called "little people" who helped to make them as rich as they are. I haven't seen that many foreign films in my life but I am convinced that this is among the very best that I've seen with very honest and raw performances throughout, an excellent screenplay by Cesare Zavattini, excellent black and white cinematography, and of course masterful direction by Vittorio De Sica. This is a truly great Italian movie and is one of 1948's very best films.
Review of Bicycle Thieves
