Bicycle thief review

Bicycle Thief Review 

Notes

Slow, very slow.
Characters are a bit unrelatable.
Film takes a while to explain the stakes
Why does he not just steal another bike?
Boy is more active than the Father
Long anxiety, build ups little pay off

not a great film
bike represents the man lively hood
The actors work well
father becomes more and more desperate and angry
Boy starts to feel ashamed of his father and hurt by his actions

Review

The bicycle thief is a rather slow film that takes a long time to tell a story where very little actually  happens. The film centres around a man called Antonio trying to support his family in post WW2 Italy. When he gets a well paying job that requires a bike, the Antonio's bike is stole while he works meaning he is unable to do his job. While I think the beginning of the film is well paced and sets up the story well, the rest of the film does little with the premise. Antonio's

Maybe the film was a master piece of Neo-realism, but by today's standards "The Bicycle Thief" is slow and rather boring. One of my major problems with the film is just how thick the protagonist is portrayed to be and how silly the film is at times. It takes Antonio most of the film to realise that he will probably never find his original bike and that even if he finds the man who stole his bike, he has no proof of the theft and the thief has probably already sold the bike. It is only at the end of the film that Antonio even thinks of stealing a bike and even when given the prefect scenario he still messes up the theft by peeling at what is basically jogging pace. When Antonio steals the bike, He is close to a large crowd of people leaving a stadium, many of who are on bikes. If he had biked faster and driven into the crowd, he could of easily lost his pursers. The other problem with Antonio's assault on the thief and the attempt bike theft is that when Antonio commits these acts everyone in the general vicinity drops what they are doing and rush to intervene. The assault on the thief is particularly silly as 50+ people pour out of nearby buildings to assist the thief. I can understand some people might hear the racket and investigate, BUT 50+????

While I understand that the director and writer's were trying to portray an every man with good morals, I find it hard to relate to a character who lets his moral get in the way of logical and his own survival. Antonio state in the film that the lost of his job will result in his family starving, yet it takes him so long to realise that the solution to his problem is to steal someone else's bike.

Overall I feel like that "The Bicycle Thief" is a slow film that delivers very little build up. The supposed everyday life of the poor man feels very circumstantial and the events of the film seem to be driven and caused by general lack of logic thought.

Euan Frizzell

Frizzell was born and raised on the Canterbury Plains. He is credited with making over 200 animations in commericals and children's shows. Some examples of Frizzel's work for children are "The Wizard and his Magic Spells (1984)" and "Shopping with a Crocodile (1986). In the mid 70s he studied for a Diploma in Visual Communication in Design at Wellington Polytechnic and went on to train as an animator at Halas & Batchelor studio in England.

Euan Frizzell became a icon for NZ after animating Magaret Mahy's " The Great White Man-Eating Shark". The success of this one animation lead to Frizzell to animate four more of Magaret Mahy's children's stories. These tales were "The Boy with Two Shadows", "Keeping House", "The Witch in the Cherry tree" and "The Three-legged cat". Another part of Frizzell's work was animating famous cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Duffy Duck and Fred Flintstone. Without a doubt, Frizzell's work on the Mahy children's tales and classic cartoon characters inspired many New Zealand kids to pursue animation as a career.

Some of Frizzell's more recent work includes animating the demon/ devil in Glen Standring's "The Irrefutable truth about demons" and acted as lead animation on the set of Jonathan King's remake of "Under the Mountian". Frizzell is credited with work in many fields of animation, including 2D, 3D, VFX and Claymation.

Euan Frizzell died on 23 September 2012.

http://www.nzonscreen.com/person/euan-frizzell/biography
http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/obituaries/7857096/Frizzell-put-life-and-soul-into-animated-characters

German Expressionism

German Expression film making occurred after Germany's defeat in World War 1 in the late 1910s and lasted to the late 1930s/ early 1940s. These films focused on intellectual topics and themes of maddness, betrayal and loss. Compared to the films of the rest of the western world (which were mostly action and romance films) the German expression films are considered much deeper and thoughtful. Lighting, scenery and atheistic were all manipulated to enhance the mood of the film and did not have to reflect reality. An example of this is painting exaggerated shadows on the walls instead of using realistic lighting.

The German Expressionist movement influenced many genres and people. The movement most noticeable impacted (and possibly created) the horror, film noir and Science fiction. The movement produced some of the most famous early horror films such as Max Schreck's Nosferatu and Robert Wiene's "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The German Expressionist movement also influences the science fiction genre. An example of this is the comparison between Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and Ridley Scott's "Bladerunner" (seen below). Both films use impossibly high structures in their scenery that cast shadows over the surround urban landscape.

A contemporary film maker influenced by German expressionism is Alex Proyas, director of "The Crow", "Dark city", "Knowing" and "I Robot". "Dark City" particular seems like a blend of "Metrpolis" and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" with a film noir/ science fiction plot set in a large city and shot using deep shadows.

 Proyas uses the techniques of deep shadows to create menace, not only for the antagonists (such as in German Expressionist horror films) but also to create an underlying menace for the city itself. The lighting not only casts dark shadow but also creates eerie colors and pictures.

 The film also uses symbolism similar to that of which can be seen in the works of German Expressionists and the likes of Tim Burton, with patterns like huge spirals drawn on the walls and on corpses being important to the plot. "Dark city' even shares the themes of madness and manipulation with the German Expressionist movement.