Antonio And Bruno example essay topic

The Bicycle thief - Antonio and Bruno relationship On one level, the film is about the economical crisis and the unemployment in Italy during the post-war period. It is a society where the poverty drives people to criminal offences. No one seems to care about others because everybody has their own problems. Not even the police are very helpful, when Antonio reports his stolen bike. The only sign of humanity is in the end when the man, from whom Antonio steels the bike, does not want to press charges against him, but seems to feel sorry for him instead. On another level it is a movie showing the relationship between a father and his son, and when a son's adoration for his father suddenly is being replaced with less admiration and more realism.

Antonio and Bruno are almost together during the entire film. After Antonio gets his bike stolen, Bruno follows him around in the city of Rome to find it again. Before this happens we see that Bruno is trying to be like his father. In the scene where Antonio is going to work for the first time, Bruno is cleaning the bike for him, wearing the same work clothes, and getting the same lunch as Antonio; just smaller. He puts his lunch in his breast pocket exactly like his father and when they are riding on the bike, Bruno has a content expression on his face, feeling proud that his father has a job. Already in the evening the same day, Bruno's admiration for Antonio gets affected by the fact that Antonio is too late.

Bruno has been waiting for him, and feels let down by his father who had promised to be there earlier. When Antonio gives a reason why he is late, Bruno just follows him again like the little boy who looks up to father, but he is still wondering about the bike. Bruno's uncritical acceptance of his father's authority is significantly disrupted at several other points in the film. When Antonio takes out his frustrations on his son and slaps him with little apparent cause, Bruno refuses all visual contact with Antonio for some time.

When he is walking away, his father tells him to go and wait for him. After this a boy falls in the water and Antonio thinks that it is Bruno. A little perspective is giving to him by this accident, and he realizes that his bike is not the most important thing in the world. He gains Bruno's respect again by taking him to a restaurant. At the restaurant the cold realities of the society they live in is being revealed to Bruno. When he sees the rich family and the child eating all the expensive dishes, he knows that his father is far from the great man he thought he was.

Antonio is trying to explain to Bruno why the bike is so important, and they continue their search. Antonio is not very observant when it comes to Bruno. Even though Bruno is trying is trying hard to get his father to notice him, Antonio seems to overlook his son. After Bruno falls down in the rain, and his father does not even notice it, but are running to find shelter, he brushes the dirt of his clothes quite exaggerated, so that his father now will notice him. It still takes a while before Antonio asks Bruno what he is doing. When Bruno answers, he is almost shouting and seems annoyed that his father did not notice before.

When Bruno almost is run over by the cars in the end, Antonio does not notice either, he is busy thinking about the crime he is going to commit. He just wants Bruno out of the way. Bruno's experience with his father that day gets him to realize that his father is not perfect. His father is just a person no better than the man who stole his bike. When he sees his father on the stolen bike riding as fast as he can to get away from the crowd following him, he cannot believe his own eyes, which is filled with horror, but when Antonio gets caught he also does all he can to help him.

He pushes his way into the middle of the crowd where his father is being slapped and humiliated. He is the one who saves his father from being arrested, because when the man who owns the bike sees Bruno, he knows that Antonio is forced into crime by the poverty of the society and he only does it because he has a family to support. In this scene it is Bruno who is the adult and has to save his father from the crowd. He is both being portrayed as the child, but several times also as a father figure. For example when he is cleaning the bike in the beginning of the movie and notices a dent on the bike. He wants his father to complain about it, but Antonio does not seem to bother.

When they leave the bedroom Bruno also closes the window shutters to protect the baby from the morning sun. It is also Bruno who finds a police man, when they catch the thief in Via Panic. Bruno follows his father like a shadow almost throughout the whole film. This could have a symbolic meaning that Bruno actually is Antonio's shadow. Seen from a Freudian perspective, Bruno could be Antonio's conscience. First Antonio is trying to ignore his conscience, (ignoring Bruno) and only notice it / him when he is shouting out loud.

In the end Antonio is trying to escape from his conscience by telling Bruno to get on the bus, and he will meet him later. He does not want his conscience to be around when he is going to steel the bike. When Antonio realizes that he cannot run away from his conscience / Bruno but it actually is what saves him in the end, he starts to cry. Bruno recognizes and forgives his father's mistakes because he cannot condemn him as a common criminal since the man is, after all, his father. When Bruno slips his hand into Antonio's at the end of the film, he is offering his father an entirely new relationship, one where Antonio does not have to be perfect, being his father is enough.