Ladri di biciclette
That's the inside of a pond shop, the bedding section. All those humble bundles are people's sheets, that they slept on for as long as they could afford to, or moreover for as long as they didn't need something else more. The hero currently needs a bike more than sheets, and consequently pawns the sheets (three matrimonial sets, three single sets, four used, two not used, cotton and linen, quality stuff) for 7500 lire, and unpawns his bike (The Fides! Next to the red one!) for 6100 lire (interest!). Thus he realises free cash flow of 1400 lire. What, that's not how free cash flow works ? Heh.
Ladri di biciclettei is yet another one of those after-the-war Italian depictions of extreme poverty, hunger and desperation - in a word, the Old World. It contains the coolest kid in the history of cinema, at least in my estimation. He has the pleasure of watching his comparatively less mature and less mentally developed but for some inexplicable reason dearly beloved father turn from hapless victim of fate and bicycle thieves to bicycle thief and hapless victim of fate.
Idiots will be idiots, films about them will be made, with a view to entertain (education is outright impossible). Clueless comentators may imagine they see "the human condition" depicted on the silver screen, and if they do they may indeed be right, inasmuch as "human condition" is, as in the case of them themselves, idiocy itself.
Perfect for a first date tho, you'll score.
———- 1948, by Vittorio De Sica, with Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell [↩]
