The Bicycle Thieves

It’s Rome 1948. Ricci is a father of two young sons. He isn’t wealthy or well-connected and is unemployed. He gathers with the other unemployed at the labour exchange, hoping to find a work placement. Luckily, he does, but the work requires a bicycle and his is in hock. It’s a dilemma that seems unbreakable to Ricci, who is perhaps something of a dreamer, or perhaps it’s that his store of ingenuity has been eroded by the exigencies of the times, but his wife knows what to do and his pawned bike is bought back.

Thus equipped, Ricci can start to re-establish his own and his family’s place in society. The job’s entailments, his uniform and workday routine, for example, have an immediate impact on his family, by tacitly testifying to the fact that Ricci has regained his position as breadwinner. These positive effects are touching. Ricci and his family come across as gentle folk, and we are glad for this ray of sunshine in an otherwise straitened existence. Given the film’s title, we fear that this new optimism might not last. A sequence where Ricci leaves his bicycle unattended is surely calculated to play on this fear. When, eventually, the bike is purloined, Ricci turns to his friends for their help in relocating it. Following their search, we learn that there is a thriving trade, both legal and illegal, in bicycles in Rome at this time. In outdoor markets, and abundance of bicycles and their myriad parts are presented for sale, making the search seem hopeless. A few tantalising sightings of the thief and the bike offer hope, but these are reminiscent of the common nightmare of the eternal pursuit of an object that remains always beyond one’s grasp, howsoever vigorous the chase.

As the chase progresses, Ricci’s anxiety at his loss intensifies. He does almost everthing he can to get back his bike. When the most likely trails have been tried, he turns to less conventional methods. I won’t give away the result of the search, but Ricci, or the viewer, learns that no matter how desperate things may seem, they could be worse.

At one point in the search, when Ricci passes by some German seminarians, there is an evident recognition on his part. On another occasion, he identifies the bicycle thief by the fact that he wore a German military hat. These are references to WWII. Some larger denominations of italian lire of the time are like foolscap sheets. Bedsheets, themselves, are stacked to the rafters in the pawn shop, apparently a luxury that people forego so that they can afford even more basic items. These and other details about life in Rome in 1948 give the film its essential character and provide and interest beyond the pragmatic question of whether Ricci will get his bike back. To paraphrase Lance Armstrong , it’s not about the bike, entirely.

archive h☼me