Director Vittorio De Sica’s 1949 film, The Bicycle Thieves is a staple of Italian postwar neorealism. Despite its academic reputation, this film remains an accessible, pleasant viewing experience. Antonio Ricci is a husband and father who is desperately trying to find work. A job putting up posters around Rome becomes available but a bicycle is a requirement. Antonio’s wife, Maria, sells the family’s prized dowry bedsheets so that he can afford to buy a bike. On his first day of work, Antonio’s new bike is stolen.
The way that De Sica conveys just how much the bicycle means to Antonio and his family makes the theft feel like a cataclysmic event. By the time the bike is stolen, the audience has come to understand that it is the one ray of hope for a family living in poverty. The remainder of the film follows Antonio, accompanied by his son Bruno, searching throughout Rome for his stolen chance at freedom from his status quo.
The finale of the film plays out just as tragically as the rest as the viewer watches through Bruno’s eyes as Antonio is forced to give up his on his own principles and become a bicycle thief himself. The film’s title serves as clever foreshadowing/spoiler-in-disguise to this tragic story about the human spirit.
Introduction to World Cinema 