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February 27, 2003

Beijing Bicycle

Having been in a Hong Kong film mood for the past couple of weeks is both good and bad. On one side it gives me a chance to move away from the American mind set of film and experience the culture of the world as best as I can from an armchair. On the other side, you sometimes get some truly awful films. Thankfully Beijing Bicycle is just an excellent story and film. The story as a whole is about a guy (Guei) who moves to the city from the country. He's pretty fascinated by the world around him, and soon gets a job as a bike messenger. Since he has no money, the company gives him (and other employees) a bike to do his job. The catch is he has to work off the debt through a percentage of his paycheck. Breaking this down a bit, I found this interesting. The company could be seen as the government giving each of it's employees/citizens a chance to be equal... but you have to pay taxes for that (bike payments in this case). Despite doing his job well, Guei eventually has his bike stolen and becomes determined to find it. We discover later that a young teen has stolen it to be accepted by his peers, and win the fancy of a girl. Ah youthful ignorance of trying to impress a girl by riding a bike. Guei decides to steal the bike back, and the story moves from here. The illusions of communism though return later in a solution for the bike. Watching the movie, I felt it was a really fantastic movie. Well made film (nice color, angles), enjoyable script, and interesting characters you begin to care about. After having thought about the film for a bit though, I began to see a lot of political under tones. The communism mentality being one of the larger. Another idea later, that you can't keep the hard worker down, is repeated over and over again. Buy It: If you like foreign films, sure Rent It: definitely TV: I doubt you'll ever see this on a channel other than Sundance.

Posted by Dan at February 27, 2003 09:09 PM

Comments

so, if you like this movie you should try something that may have influenced this one. Its called "The bicycle thief" (I Ladri di bicyclette)and its an old italian black and white movie. Its one of the most beautifull films i have ever seen.

Posted by: kostas at February 28, 2003 04:38 AM

Thanks, I've heard about this one, but have yet to find it. I've asked the local video store if they can locate it, but so far confidence is not high.

Posted by: Dan at February 28, 2003 09:14 AM