Movies - Blue Miracle and The Bicycle Thieves

I recently watched two movies and the message from the two movies is about parenting. Just want to jot them down here before I forget about them.

The names of the two movies are 1. Blue Miracle (which is based on a true story) and 2. The bicycle thieves.

Without getting into too much details, here is how the story goes in both the movies.

A parent/caretaker (of an orphanage) of children gets into troubles brought about due to socio economic conditions (in both movies, it is about poverty and eviction and lack of money). And the families get an opportunity to make things better but the opportunity does not materialize into reality. In Blue Miracle, they expect to catch a big fish and get the prize money but they get into a situation where that doesn’t seem likely and they don’t win the money and without the money, they are going to lose their place of living (the orphanage) and the kids will become homeless. In The bicycle thieves, the father’s bicycle is stolen and he searches all over the town for the bicycle but doesn’t find it. Without a bicycle, he is going to lose his job. In a situation of desperation, he looks at bicycles that belong to other people and starts thinking about stealing them.

In both situations, the kids are paying attention to what the elders are doing. How is my father/caretaker going to get us out of this adversity? And in this difficulty, the father/caretaker gets a chance to cheat/steal or do something unethical but if they do it, they wouldn’t have financial troubles.

This is where the two movies diverge.

In Blue Miracle, the father/caretaker does not cheat. He passes the opportunity to cheat and instead decides to play the game in an honest way - even if it means losing their house and getting kicked out on to the street. The kids watch all of this. They feel disappointed at that particular moment, but in the long run, even if things do not work out for them, they wouldn’t lose their respect for the father.

In The bicycle thieves, the father gives in to temptation and tries to steal someone else’s bicycle. He gets caught in the process and gets a good thrashing from the crowd. And the son watches all of this. In the end, the father feels shameful and regret. But in a way, he lost his son’s respect.

Here is the speech that the caretaker gives in the movie Blue Miracle: The reality is that we did not catch the fish we needed and all of us know what that means. I’ve always said that if you straighten yourself out and you do the right thing every chance you get, things will work out in the end. But that isn’t exactly true. Sometimes things don’t work out. Oftentimes, actually. You take the hard paths, you make all the right sacrifices, and then at the end of the day, you find that you are just standing in the same place, and it will all feel like it was all for nothing. But it isn’t. Because when life knocks you down, which it often does, you will be able to face it with character. I will always love you. No matter what happens, you will be my sons and I will be your papa.

(In an unexpected turn of events, they do end up catching a big fish and winning the tournament and winning the prize money and saving the orphanage. But that is besides the point.)

Kids learn a lot from the way adults deal with situations and they follow the same pattern in their lives as well.