The Icicle Thief (1989)

On the other hand, if you can accept subtitles, I can not recommend this Italian film too highly.  Conceived and directed by Maurizio Nichetti who also takes two lead roles, one finds a comic genius who is so much more talented than Roberto Benigni the Academy Award clown. From the title you may guess that this is a take on neo-realist films such as "The Bicycle Thief" and the director has an obvious love of cinema per se.  However he is also making a statement about the way that films are often treated on television, and this movie allows the frequent ads to bleed into the film and vice versa so that one no longer knows quite what one is watching or what the auteur's intention might have been initially. It's not exactly laugh-out-loud funny, although the smiles are frequent, but it is undeniably exceptionally clever.