Recent viewings

The Bicycle Thief. Atmospheric, low-key black & white European film, ostensibly about an impoverished man who needs his bicycle to earn a living. When the bicycle is stolen, he spends the rest of the day doggedly pursuing the thief through the streets, alleys, churches and bordellos of the city, accompanied by his young son.

Of course, to me the much more interesting story is not the pursuit of the bicycle, but the relationship between father and son. What child, at the age of five or six, does not adore his parents and believe that they are omnipotent beings who can accomplish anything? And what father wants to have his son closely observe him as he struggles and falls short of being the man, the father, the provider that he wants to be?