This is the original Flike.* It is after this dog that I named my dog. These shots are from the film Umberto D, considered the last and deepest sigh of the Italian Neorealist film movement. It was made in 1952 (which makes it even older than a certain blogger down in Florida, I think). If I had to list my top ten movies, maybe even my top five, this one would be one of them. The story is simple. A lonely, impoverished pensioner cannot make the rent and is about to be thrown on the streets. He has some options, but none are pleasant and none of them permit him to keep his dog. He spends much of the film trying to find a new home for Flike, but in the end he thinks he has come up with a better solution for both of them. The denouement comes in the frame you see below (note the train tracks in the background). In the end, Flike teaches Umberto the meaning of life. It's a grim film, and an uplifting one.