Rating: 5/5
Criterion Challenge 2023 | 20/52 | Tearjerkers
Pensioners march through the streets of Rome, protesting for increases in their pensions. Among the marching group are Umberto and his dog, Flike.
Umberto’s rent is almost as much as his meager pension, forcing him to sell off belongings to make ends meet. He tries to sell his gold watch to one of the protesting men. The man slips away without an answer.
When he returns to his room, he finds his landlady lent it to a young couple. The landlady demands his total overdue rent by the end of the month, or she will evict him.
Umberto and Maria, the maid, are friendly. He asks her to check his throat, and she confirms a white coating. He goes to the hospital, leaving Flike in Maria’s care.
When he gets home, his room is under renovation. The landlady let out Flike without letting Maria know.
Umberto does everything he can to find Flike. He thinks about ending his life, but not before ensuring someone cares for Flike.
De Sica improves his approach from Bicycle Thieves. He avoids sentimentality and lets the circumstances speak for themselves.
In less deft hands, this would be poverty porn, but De Sica speaks to real social problems in post-war Italy.
He also injects the story with graceful humor to keep the story experience from being dour. Not laugh-out-loud moments, but slivers of brightness.
Umberto’s story is not unrecognizable today. Capitalism is a brutal machine that consumes goodness and pride. Love can carry us, but is it enough?
The film is full of tiny details — the spot on the wall where years of matches strike, the morning coffee, and the temperamental alarm clock.
Flike is so cute! I tittered whenever he showed up and performed a trick. He sits and holds a hat to beg, and I die.