I’m afraid that people who have never lost their jobs cannot fully appreciate what it is like to be unemployed.The first wave is humiliation. Called into an empty conference room in full view of everyone, whether it is a good talk or a business deal, the huge blow and shock will be dazed and dizzy. A short section of the aisle instantly turned into a “parade of shame”, quietly pack up and leave is still polite; if colleagues come to say goodbye, those with regret, regret tone of comfort, even if more sincere, more thoughtful, into the already deaf ears have instantly changed the tone, alienated into pity and mockery of the background noise, stirring people’s hearts like a numbness,. I don’t know what to do.
The next step is denial. Unable to think, unable to hear, the mind is blank, a huge and insurmountable gap between history and reality. After the emotions have calmed down, you can’t help but go back over and over again, what did you do wrong to cause the bad luck? Is it fate or a small probability event? Maybe there is room for maneuvering? Maybe it’s just a temporary hold? Maybe it’s just a nightmare, wake up, wake up, it hasn’t happened yet, everything will continue to be the same ……
Denial fails, followed by frustration. How can destiny be so ill-fated, always making people stumble and fall, a stumble followed by a heel. The frowns of parents, the eyes of peers, the complaints of wives and children, the misery of this world is truly endless and never ends. Repeated self-denial and doubt, inevitably will come to the ability of mediocre and low, slow and slow character, narrow and closed-minded and so on self-deprecating conclusions. It is not necessary to blame God and make self-loathing, but it is always a loss of confidence, loss of face, depression, depression is difficult to stop, depressed.
With such a heavy material pressure and sharp psychological blow, how should an unemployed person face life? To what kind of dead end do the times and fate force people to turn their pain into lotus flowers?
Ladri di biciclette, a masterpiece of Italian neo-realism, begins with Antonio Ricci, who has been unemployed for two years and has just found a job putting up posters. Post-World War II Italy was devastated and struggling, with high unemployment rates plunging the whole of Rome into poverty and panic, and countless people vying for every menial job. Ritchie’s hard-won job of putting up posters had to be done by bicycle, and the employer did not provide bicycles. In order to do this job, Ritchie’s wife Maria took the family’s only worth of dowry sheets to the pawn, the family had to sleep on the mattress to redeem the old bicycle pawned for food. For Ritchie, this broken car is the major lifeline of the family’s livelihood, and the only way to change their fate and hope.
Ritchie’s six-year-old son Bruno treats his dad’s battered bicycle like a treasure, polishing it every day, even with a small puddle in mind, waving his hand like a little man complaining about the pawnshop guys not enough attention to the car. His admiration for his father was written all over his face, and both father and son went to work early in the morning wearing raggedy one-piece work pants, each with a mama’s quiche roll in his upper pocket for lunch, smiling brightly and energetically – a new day, a day with work and income, was about to begin.
In contrast to little Bruno’s innocent cuteness, the character of Ritchie has multiple layers in the film. He is excited when he first finds a job, but once he hears that he must have a bicycle, he immediately freaks out, sighing like a child in front of his wife, waiting for Maria to give him a solution. After the car was robbed, he was terrified and only settled down a little when he enlisted the help of a friend who was a cleaning truck driver. As hope fades away, his anxiety and despair grow stronger and stronger, until finally, whether he can find the bike is not only a matter of livelihood, but also a father’s dignity and image in the eyes of his children. And when this dignity suffers an unprecedented blow in front of the relentless life, his frustration directly evolves into anxiety, and the innocent little Bruno becomes an outlet for his anger. But once Bruno’s safety became the top priority, fatherly love immediately overcame everything, the tall man’s hands and feet, almost to please the still puffy little guy around.
The amateur actor Lamberto Maggiorani, who plays Ritchie, was indeed a blue-collar mechanic before he became famous, and his slightly sunken cheeks and the headlines that gather when he speaks make people sigh at him without words, but the most memorable thing is his eyes, which accumulate a certain seemingly calm but silent and dark The most unforgettable is his eyes, which accumulate some kind of seemingly calm but silent and dark sorrow, soaked with a lot of hidden and brewing, as if two wells of bitter water, the bottom is not visible.
Such a Ritchie is very unforgettable – his unique melancholy is not the product of sentimental feelings, it is the exhaustion that permeates from the inside out after experiencing the harshest pressure of life, and the subconscious physical weariness that goes with it. Machiolani’s Ritchie always moves very slowly, after the car was stolen he did not immediately go after, but stood still stunned, this few seconds of jet lag just helped the thief and his accomplices escape; he chased an old man begging for porridge, panicked and broke into the church with little Bruno, but always a step late, half a beat slower; his legs move unusually heavy, as if he had to break free of any invisible obstacles before finally taking that As if he had to break free from some invisible obstacle before he could finally take that step. Such a character is thin, tall, slow, and melancholy, and must struggle to maintain the illusion of a father’s omnipotence in his child’s mind while fighting against the fatigue of fate, which makes his moment of joy with little Bruno in the restaurant all the more bright and precious in a series of worsening events, and reinforces the severity and devastation of the unexpected events that follow.
In addition to the main line of Ritchie and Bruno’s search for a bicycle, the film also very cleverly blends realistic criticism into the supporting characters and scenes. The poor mother of the car thief is a typical woman of the lower class, she is eager to protect her son, facing Ritchie’s questioning, but once faced with the police, who represent the power of the state, she immediately softens, although angry, but always let people search their own broken home. The old man, who was in rags with the thieves, was timid and fearful on the one hand, and Ritchie casually threatened two sentences to confess everything; on the other hand, he was cunning, like a slippery eel that disappeared under the nose. The old man’s congee brings out the powerlessness of God’s name in the face of enormous social poverty. With both the government and religious salvation blocked, what other options could the poor people of post-war Italy have, besides stealing and robbing, in Rome, a big city with a serious division between the rich and the poor?
The Bicycle Thief was originally written by Italian painter, writer and poet Luigi Bartolini in 1946, and the film was brought to the screen by Italian director Vittorio De Sica in 1948. The film was brought to the screen by Italian director Vittorio De Sica in 1948. More than half a century later, the world has experienced a new revolution in the electronics industry, creating unprecedented wealth and wonders, but at the same time, the employment situation has not been qualitatively improved. Robert Reich, an economist at the Goldman School of National Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, points out in his new book Aftershock that one of the major causes of the growth bubble, high unemployment and slow economic recovery is the high concentration of social wealth and the growing polarization. Professor Reich compares the share of social wealth accounted for by the top income earners in the new century with the historical situation and finds that only in 1928 and 2007 did the top 1% of society occupy more than 23% of social wealth, and these two extreme years happened to be the year before the most severe economic crisis in U.S. history, respectively. Professor Reich believes that as long as social wealth continues to be concentrated and the injustice of the rich-poor divide is not fundamentally and systematically improved, the hope of American recovery will be elusive. From this perspective, 1948’s “The Bicycle Thief” is by no means distant in its relevance. It creates the most vivid and concrete image of all unemployment and poverty, and it reminds us forever that the state and government must be committed to social justice and institutional equity, and to the rational and fair distribution of wealth, and not the other way around.
The most heartbreaking scene of the film is fifty seconds before the end, when Ritchie and young Bruno are pushed and shoved aimlessly along with the crowd. De Sica’s lighting of this scene is amazing, the sunset at the entrance of the alley first quickly swept the right side of Ritchie’s face, in the moment of light and dark intertwined, Ritchie is still doing his best to maintain his composure. The camera switched, is full of tears and sweat of little Bruno stared up at the taller dad beside him with wide eyes. The next second, the sun disappeared, Richie lowered his head to look at his son walking beside him holding his hand, all the aggression, hardship, despair, guilt, helplessness, remorse all tangled together, instantly rushed to the frown. At that very moment, Richie cried, this tall, strong, running all day man finally in front of his six-year-old son cried. The camera moved again to little Bruno, he kept looking up at his father, at the same time, Richie’s big rough hand clutching Bruno’s little hand, tightly, father and son said nothing, just walk forward, walk forward, aimlessly.
What is it like to be unemployed? This is the taste of unemployment, is pushed by life, squeezed, in the bone darkness without purpose roll, crawl; is stepping on the knife of shame, pressure and uncertainty still must carry the family and responsibility of determination; is encountered constant trauma, blow, denial and despair after the stone-like silence; is Ritchie face finally could not hold back the tears and little Bruno’s eyes do not see the future of fear.In such a moment, facing such a reality, what else can you do? In addition to crying out, what can you do?