a review of 偷自行车的人

1st Annual Criterion Challenge Week #9: Made in Italy I didn't know exactly what to expect from this movie other than that it was one of those titles that comes up again and again when people talk about classic arthouse and foreign films. I was really pleased with how grounded and simply told it is; I think there's a certain preconception that these kinds of movies are somehow inaccessible, but going down this list (as well as the AFI 100 or other classic-film collections) the thing that keeps striking me is how universal so many of them are. Not knowing the particulars of the story, I wasn't prepared for how desperate and bleak this movie gets at the end, and spent most of the running time assuming that this was going to be an easily resolved point-A-to-point-B story about his man and his child finding the lost bicycle. But the way it resolves is even better, in that it accepts that tragedy and loss is a constant fact of life and that the way to face it is by being there for each other in the way that the son is for his father.