Bitter Rice (1949)

Awesome Movie

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Thieves Doris Dowling and Vittorio Gassman are fleeing the cops with some stolen jewelry when they get separated at a train station. Dowling hides out by joining a transport train for women going to work as rice pickers. She befriends rice picker Silvana Mangano, and all is good until Mangano figures out who she really is ... and then Gassman shows up. A remarkable blend of neorealism with a social message and straight up genre exploitation. While the film draws a vivid portrait of what life is like for women working at the grueling job, it also REALLY highlights their boobs and bare legs ... and ends with violent crime film happenings. I kind of love this film.

Francesca and Walter are two-bit criminals in Northern Italy, and, in an effort to avoid the police, Francesca joins a group of women rice workers. She meets the voluptuous peasant rice worker, Silvana, and the soon-to-be-discharged soldier, Marco. Walter follows her to the rice fields, and the four characters become involved in a complex plot involving robbery, love, and murder.In the film, the character Silvana represents enchantment with behavior modeled in American films, such as chewing gum and boogie-woogie dancing. Her downfall shows director Giuseppe De Santis's condemnation of these products of American capitalism. In addition, Silvana was considered by many audiences to be overly-sexualized. This sexualization and the melodramatic presence of death and suicide in the film cause it to diverge from typical Italian neorealism.I do find the symbolism interesting, especially because (as noted) the neorealist films of the era (which have been getting a major re-evaluation as of late) really are pretty straight-forward, very Italian, and often dealing with post-war themes. There is some of that post-war feeling here, but we see less of the "city as a character" and more individuals.On a personal note, I like that this film is an early entry in the DeLaurentiis dynasty. Dino DeLaurentiis produced, and his wife is the star. This is 1949 (just after World War II), and the family is still an important part of Italian and American culture today (2016).

Along a few weeks in Northern Italy, many women leave their families and jobs and move to the rice fields to work in the harvest of rice. The lovers Francesca (Doris Dowling) and Walter (Vittorio Gassman) has just robbed a valuable jewel from a hotel, and Francesca joins a group of workers while escaping from the police. A silly and sensual worker, Silvana (Silvana Mangano), gets closer to Francesca fascinated by the precious necklace she found hidden in Francesca's mattress. When they arrive to the lodge, they meet Sergeant Marco (Raf Vallone), who is discharging the army and feels attracted by Silvana. A square of love is formed with tragic consequences."Riso Amaro" is an original neo-realistic dramatic romance that presented Silvana Mangano to the world, leading her to a position of star. She is extremely beautiful and sexy in the role of the peasant Silvana, especially while dancing with the handsome Vittorio Gassman. Doris Dowling is also excellent, performing the suffering Francesca, a women abused by her scum lover. This movie was presented in the fourth Cannes Festival, without awards. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Arroz Amargo" ("Bitter Rice")

Riso Amaro is bizarrely and wonderfully paradoxical: a movie that decries and deconstructs Hollywood-style escapism at every turn, and ,yet, is itself as pure an opiate for the masses as is known to Italian cinema.The closest comparison that occurs to me is Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West. Both fetishize the technical and narrative magic of classic American films, the boundless optimism of the American dream that only soaring crane shots and panoramic vistas filled with casts of thousands (or at least a few dozen) can convey. Both fondly revisit every last genre movie cliche that can be crammed in edgewise. Yet, both are the work of foreigners asserting their alien and alienated status.If your sensibility tends to dialectical Marxism, view Bitter Rice as a fascinating demonstration and critique of lumpen-proletariat "double-consciousness". If you could care less about such things, dig Silvana Mangano and Vittorio Gassman doing a rhumba, or the lovely exploited riceworkers hiking their skirts above their thighs and wading towards a watery catfight with non-union laborers ---or all the other delirious and visionary standout sequences that add up to Gone With the Wind as shot by Sam Fuller. Amazing stuff.In a perfect world, this film would be available in the USA. It isn't at the moment. Slap some subtitles on it somebody, please!