The Bicycle Thief (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)

Consistently voted one of the best films of all time- Ladri di Biciclette is a powerhouse of a film. The story is of a man living in post-WWII Rome which makes sense since that is where and when it was filmed. I imagine at the time it was a seriously political film. I imagine a lot of things though. This film is the height of Italian Neo-Realism which basically is shooting a film on location using actors whom are not trained and usually from the area. They deal in conveying the emotion of the landscape and people. It doesn't focus on a plot as much as an organic growth of a narrative.

In this film Antonio Ricci is a lower-class man attempting to get by, everyday he goes down to an employment center where on this particular day he is offered a job. He gets the job because the employer happens to know he has a bicycle. As it turns out he had pawned it off the month before. This leads to his wife, Maria, pawning her wedding sheets to get enough money to buy the bike back from the pawnbroker. While he is waiting to receive his bike he sees the broker toss his wife's sheets into a growing collection of sheets stacked up about thirty feet. The enormous collection of bicycles that have been pawned is off putting.

He shows up to work the next day, gets a quick lesson on how to paste up signs and then sets off on his own. While working on his first poster he is robbed. The rest of the film deals with attempting to retrieve the bike back. It is a bit of a mislead film noir, Antonio wandering the streets with his son hoping to come across the bike again.