Bicycles Are for the Summer

Jaime Chávarri's 1984 Spanish film, adapted from Fernando Fernán Gómez's play, follows the daily life of a family in Madrid across the Civil War. Luisito asks his father for a bicycle; the war begins and the purchase is put off again and again. The idea is to tell the war from the kitchen rather than the front: shortages of food, relations with neighbours, ordinary arguments continuing between bombardments. The bicycle becomes the symbol of everything postponed. It belongs to the films made after Franco's death that told the Civil War through the daily experience of the republican side. The ending is sad and there is no heroism. Who it's for: viewers interested in Spanish cinema and films about the Civil War. Who it's not for: anyone wanting war action, or who would rather not watch without the historical context.