And, now I totally understand why “Sight and sound” rated “The Bicycle Thief” the best movie of all time. Every single frame of the movie is intense; it’s the story of a lower middle class man who earns a job to stick posters, but has to produce a bicycle to qualify for the job. His wife sells used linen, ones on the mattress that they sleep on, so they can buy the bicycle before dawn. It is the background score that makes the viewers fall in love with the middle class couple instantly.
While Ricci is on his work, a thief steals his bicycle, another thief misguides him. Battered and bereaved, Ricci is shown standing in the middle of a busy road with cars honking and vehicles buzzing past him. Now he would lose his job with nothing whatever to feed his family with. His wife works for a living, his son works in a petrol bunk. Here he is, with no one to tell his anguish with, no one to share his bereavement. Totally devastated, he approaches the police.
The city and its people show utter disregard to a lonely middle class man who is clinging on to his employment dearly. “Sign here….look for it yourself” says the policeman. So he returns home. With a little help from his friends, he begins searching for his bicycle next morning. Working on the assumption that it would have already been pulled apart; couple of them begin searching for tires, one on frames, others for bell and pump.
The movie depresses you with Ricci’s son (about 8 yrs old) searching for a bell in the market where they trade bicycle parts. The market is vast and their search begins to feel hopeless. Then it rains, and Ricci finally spots the thief dealing with an old man. The thief escapes, Ricci and his son search for the old man in a desperate hope.
Ricci slaps his son in a moment of fury when the old man slips away into the crowd. But the father and son’s love deepens when Ricci finds a small kid drowning in the river. On their way home, Ricci’s son hardly says a word. The scene where they are walking down the footpath and Ricci’s son nudges him away when he reaches out for him every single time, is very lovable. Tired and frustrated, Ricci looks into the eyes of his son and decides to buy him a pizza with what little money is left in his pocket. While in the restaurant, Ricci notes “we are both men, we can do whatever we want”. Halfway through the meal, Ricci grows melancholy for the loss of his bicycle, sits his son down, hands him a pen and paper to work out the month’s salary that it could have been, if not for the loss of bicycle (without which the office won’t employ him).
This movie is lovable; I cannot say the same for many movies. They walk all day long in search for the lost bicycle, Ricci’s son tags along tirelessly. There is hopelessness, but there is love too- the more deprived of hope Ricci gets, the more lovable the relationship between the son and father gets. Ricci, in one last attempt to save his job and thereby family, tries to steal a bicycle and gets caught, beaten up with his son watching him. The bicycle owner lets him go after realising the state in which Ricci was. With his son by his side, humiliated in public, with nowhere to go and no one to tell his grief about- if not for his son, he would have been behind the bars, but he would have preferred it, for now he has lost his face before his son. Movie ends with Ricci and his son walking home, hands held together. Ricci’s clothes are torn, men have slapped him with his son watching, and he is crying his heart out.
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