Mentioning this film the other day made me think about it, and now I have reminded myself how brilliant it is, so I am writing this just to get it out of my system.

A bit of background first. In 1948 there was a film called Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves in the UK), made by a chap called Vittorio De Sica. It is widely regarded as a classic of the Italian neorealist school of film, which in plain English means it is bloody depressing. It is set in the depression, appropriately, and a father gets a job after being out of work for ages and on his first day the bike he needs to get to work gets stolen, plunging him back into misery.

Ladri di Saponette was made in 1989 by Maurizio Nichetti. It helps if you have seen Bicycle Thieves, but as long as you know what I have already mentioned thats sufficient. At the time the film came out I had an Italian lodger who persuaded me to go along to the cinema to see it. He also explained that the title literally translates as The Soap Thief as it centres on chandeliers which could be described as looking like soap bubbles if you were looking for a word which rhymes with biciclette in Italian, but as that doesn’t rhyme in English it was translated as icicle – which handily also suits glass chandeliers.

Anyway, I didn’t know what to expect, but did not expect a film which would turn out to be one of my favourites despite being subtitled.

The film is about a film director, played by the director of the film (it gets complicated) whose film is being shown on TV. He is in the studio being interviewed about it and then watching it being broadcast. The film-within-a-film itself is a gritty piece of neorealism in the style of De Sica, played totally straight but with exaggerated misery and pathos. Just as it gets going there is an ad break. We see a typically naff advert or two and then the director behind the scenes arguing with the TV staff that they are ruining his film by putting in breaks. Like all arty directors he insists that the adverts are infecting the film by disrupting the viewers’ concentration.

So the film continues and little by little the adverts do start to really affect it. At first it is small things like the kid in the film whistling the jingle from an advert – with cuts to the studios where the director is watching on a monitor and pointing out the anomalies. And then there is another ad break with an attractive model diving into a swimming pool.

When the film re-starts the kid finds the model washed up on the river bank. He helps her and dries her off, as she gets dry she turns into a full colour person in a black and white film. The kid takes her home, still in her swimsuit, and all sorts of chaos ensues. The director is getting more and more irate because the film is supposed to be a study in misery and the model is turning the story around and it looks like it could be heading towards a happy ending. You can tell because other characters are starting to turn coloured. Oh, and the model herself can’t speak Italian which makes everythign even more confusing.

As the adverts and the film cross over into each other more and more the director jumps into the film himself to try and get it back on course to the abject squalor and desperation it is supposed to be, and it all gets even more chaotic.

While there is a serious point about the clash of art and commerce when adverts are inserted into films – just like the inappropriate juxtapositions in Sunday supplements which John Pilger points out in his Ways Of Seeing book and documentary – the film gets them across in a farcical way. Think of the end of Monty Python & The Holy Grail when the police get involved: it is that sort of anarchy. Plenty of TV shows have done it since, but the impact of having one character in colour while the rest are in black and white was tremendous at the time.

The film is accessible, amusing, with a message if you want it. One to consider if your local Blockbuster has it.