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Vittorio De Sica's Ladri di biciclette / Bicycle Thieves (1948), sometimes called The Bicycle Thief, has a simple, powerful plot.
In the wake of the downfall of Mussolini-style fascism and the end of the Second World War, people in Rome are trying to make ends meet.
The spotlight turns to one family, a man, a woman, a young son and a baby. The man-husband-father finds a job, but it's one that requires a working bicycle for transportation. He takes the job, and with the help of is wife, retrieves his bike from a pawn shop. Now, said bike must be guarded carefully, because practically everyone is desperate and might steal it.
And yet, despite precautions, the bike is stolen. This is the set-up for the film: if the bike isn't found by the next work day -- or a replacement found -- the job will be lost.
The resulting drama is surprisingly gripping, as the man's good-natured son tags along. It's a very effective structure, still used -- as in Jean-Pierre
Dardenne and Luc Dardenne's Deux jours, une nuit / Two Days, One
Night (2014), starring Marion
Cotillard.
Bicycle Thieves elicited (and still does) international empathy and sympathy for regular Italians, and (hopefully) for other people recovering from major trauma, too. Life is tough for these survivors -- though Italy, as one can see in this and other films of the period, is not as devastated as, say, its former Axis ally countries, Germany and Japan.
Bicycle Thieves is rated very highly in the annals of moviemaking. To me, it distinguishes itself from, say, the novel (by Luigi Bartolini) on which it's based, because it so effectively develops the story in a way that maximizes visuals, sounds, and motion -- the art of the cinema.
This film and several others somewhat like it are part of "Italian Neorealism," down-to-earth tales set in the immediate post-war years (and even during the war), lasting from about 1943 until about 1952. Why "Neorealism?" Because it is sort of a sequel to "Social Realism" as in writings by Émile Zola (1840-1902) and Maxim Gorky (1868-1936). As conditions improved, the desire to make or see such "blues" films largely tapered off. But they are great works of art and wonders to behold.
Today's Rune: Wholeness.
With Le silence de Lorna / Lorna's Silence (2008), the Dardenne Brothers do it again - deliver an indie film with modest production budget that is stronger than any of the 21st century blockbusters that I've seen so far.
This is a tight existential film focused on a daisy chain of interconnected people and decisions made in a short time frame. These international characters are gaming the system, but their plans and actions quickly become fraught with moral choices.
Albanians Lorna (played by Arta Dobroshi, from Kosovo) and Sokol, her paramour, hope to open a little "snack bar" in Belgium. Already in geographic place, Lorna works at a small dry cleaning joint. Sokol is always on the road, doing long hauling and God knows what else. Lorna, meanwhile, is in a marriage of convenience with Claudy, a seemingly hopeless drug addict, arranged and paid for by Fabio, a dangerous if petty criminal type who would like to "help" Claudy overdose so that Lorna can next marry a wealthier (and shadier) Russian client who is seeking Belgian citizenship. There is a time element that heightens the tension down the line, and there are ever-shifting financial variables.
The film is mostly, but not completely, told from Lorna's point of view. At first, we see Claudy the drug addict as she sees him -- pitiably. But then, along with Lorna, we come to have more compassion for him. Lorna goes one step beyond this even, but that's the basic set-up. A couple of things happen that I wasn't expecting -- interesting twists in a fine microcosmic drama.
Today's Rune: The Self.
In Rosetta (1999), another independent Belgian Walloon film gem by the Dardenne Brothers, there's a woman in trouble. No, there are two women in trouble: the 17-year old title character Rosetta (played by Émilie Dequenne, who won the Palme d'Or for her efforts) and her mother. They live in a Belgian trailer park sadly called "The Grand Canyon;" Mommie Dearest gives mended clothes to Rosetta to sell in town while she trades sex for booze, rent and utilities with the trailer manager and other "friends." Rosetta wants out of the situation -- i.e., she wants to save her mother and herself -- by finding a stable job. For various reasons, this proves to be an elusive goal.
Several details of the film stick to mind. Rosetta has specific ways of getting through each day despite suffering stomach aches. Some of them are crafty, some of them self-defeating. She catches fish in a large, mud-slicked pond with a broken glass bottle, hook and bait -- very clever. She hides her wading boots in a dirty little culvert (dubious). She wears the same town clothes pretty much every day, hand washing them outside the trailer. She drinks water from the same dirty little water bottle. She always runs across traffic to get to and from her trailer park, via a creepy wooded area. She has a terrible temper and a propensity to fight. She projects onto a temporary co-worker, the waffle-maker Riquet, the ways of her mother's male "friends." Maybe she's right to do so, but she needs to make friends, some kind of social connection, or she will either go crazy or worse. What's gonna happen?
The Dardenne Brothers are cool filmmakers. Above all, Rosetta is in no way a sentimental movie; in fact, it's quite visceral and absorbing -- the Zen of Purgatory. They seem to enjoy showing patterns of daily life; they are not afraid to show habits and repeated processes for emphasis.
Finally, it's worth noting that Olivier Gourmet, who plays the waffle kingpin in Rosetta, also appears in other Dardenne films. Here, his character is that of a slightly smarmy boss.
Today's Rune: Strength.
In 1996, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne delivered La Promesse / The Promise. This film, set in their familiar, deflated industrial city of Seraing, Belgium -- smaller than Flint, Michigan, for comparison -- focuses on a father (Olivier Gourmet) and son (Jérémie Renier), their dodgy migrant worker housing-and-work schemes, and some of the international refugees situated among them. Specifically, though with minimalist style, we get to know more about how things are, and more about three people from Burkino Faso: Assita (Assita Ouedraogo), Amidou (Rasmane Ouedraogo) and their baby.
In La Promesse, father Roger and son Igor have a fraught relationship that goes with the territory. Something's got to give . . .
Assita, Amidou (an unlucky gambler) and their small child.
In La Promesse as elsewhere, the Dardenne Brothers are masters at showing microcosms, situations teetering on the edge of disaster and coursing with moral quandaries. This is strong, laconic independent filmmaking.
A similarly themed but more depressing film (set in Spain and starring Javier Bardem) is Alejandro González Iñárritu's Biutiful (2010), which I also like.
Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).
At this point in 2015, my favorite movie from 2014 is Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne's Deux jours, une nuit / Two Days, One Night (2014). It revolves around the importance of a single job -- one worker's job on the line -- and her efforts, with the help of her husband and others, to save it. Marion Cotillard is fantastic, as is the whole crew. It's rare to see such an interesting take on modern life shown in this intimate way. Powerful stuff.
Deux jours, une nuit / Two Days, One Night (2014) takes place in Wallonia, Belgium, yet it has many of the hallmarks of multiple global markets in the second decade of the 21st century. You will see bottled water, pizza, mobile phones / cellphones, wireless computers, a small solar factory, industrial blight, sports, ice cream, jeans and t-shirts, new housing, and a few vestiges of locality -- a baked tart, pastries, older architecture. These contrasting hallmarks alone are worth checking out, a real eye-opener.
Deux jours, une nuit / Two Days, One Night reminds me of my temporary job delivering pizzas -- quick glimpses into people's lives at the delivery point. Here, our protagonist must schlep around town to make her case with co-workers in their home environments, bringing up this deep question: how much does anyone know about their peers, really? And just as importantly, how much do they care what happens to them?
Deux jours, une nuit / Two Days, One Night: not incidentally, Marion Cotillard is up for an Academy Award (Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role) for her role as Sandra Bya.
Today's Rune: Signals. Full disclosure: I'm part Walloon by way of Sweden, so extra attentive to the film's setting.
