My familiarity with De Sica's Bicycle Thieves was previously restricted to an episode of the Netflix Original 'Master of None,' in which the show pulls direct storylines and references to/from the film in its season 2 premiere. Show creator Aziz Ansari's character Dev faces a similar conflict as Antonio, except he has had his phone stolen instead of a bicycle. He is even driven to taking another man's phone to call his own, accidentally running off with it when he spots his thief.
The show, however, is much different from Bicycle Thieves in that the stakes are much lower. Bicycle Thieves contains a strong amount of desperation that is sensible through its characters and neo-realistic elements. As Antonio searches the city of Rome in efforts to find his bike, hope continues to diminish. He even is willing to potentially compromise the trust of his son in order to steal a new bike and ultimately provide for his family. I am glad that I got to see the classical work that inspired something else that I am a fan of.
I was also reminded of the modern yet more humorous tribute to De Sica's work by Aziz Ansari when I watched this film. After watching the Bicycle Thieves, I noticed how very little humor is used in the film and it made me wonder why Ansari chose to represent it in his pseudo-comedy Netflix series. For Antonio, what is stolen is his access to first well-being for his family and secondly the aspect of social mobility altogether. For Ansari's character, what is stolen (a cell phone) is on the surface level more trivial but through a deeper lens can be interpreted as a way of accessing his world, as was Antonio's bike.
ReplyDelete