Umberto D. is about suicide.
Maybe you disagree. Or if you agree, perhaps you’d qualify it: pointing out that Umberto D. is about a great many other things too. Poverty, for example; the dismissal of the elderly before their time; the callowness of modern life; the value of a loyal dog. I admit my view is minimalist. Umberto D., to me, is about a man on a path to personal extinguishment, and everything in the film either propels him toward that end or slows him down. It is their purpose. Even the director’s an accomplice.
