The Icicle Thief [VHS] [1989]

This fascinating Italian film (with English subtitles) by Maurizio Nichetti works on several levels at once--and is extremely funny on all of them. At heart, it's a satire of the kind of neorealism of such films as The Bicycle Thief, which it spoofs. But it also makes fun of the TV-centred society in Italy, as families gather around their TVs to watch Nichetti's takeoff on The Bicycle Thief, complete with hilarious commercial breaks. The film within a film is a spot-on black-and-white takeoff that begins to go distinctly wrong when a woman from one of the TV commercials is accidentally plopped in the middle of the film (which is about a man who is disgraced when he steals a chandelier from the chandelier factory in order to feed his family).The film is clever and visually arresting; its central effect--the Technicolour woman in the middle of the monochromatic movie--is commonplace in TV commercials now but was considered startling when this film came out.--Marshall Fine