Bitter Rice (1949)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Pretty Good

Just what I expected

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

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.

I read some reviews about this movie and I decided to give it a try, expecting I'll get bored in ten minutes and switch to something else. I kept watching and by the end of it I realized it was just wonderful.It's not necessarily a movie about ideas and ideals, about poverty and working class or even about love. The director seemed more preoccupied with capturing feelings, and he does so, frame by frame. I so much longed for a movie of that kind.The movie starts with a woman named Francesca who, together with her boyfriend, stole some jewelry and ends up hiding among the rice workers one the Italian fields. In one of the opening scenes, her boyfriend dances with one of the younger rice workers, Silvana who takes an instant liking in him. The two girls end up on the same rice farm together where they meet a young soldier. Francesca likes the soldier but he simply ignores her, being blinded by the youth and beauty of Silvana. In the end, Silvana rejects him and falls for Francesca's boyfriend. The movie owes some of its unforgettable moments to that delicious sexual tension between these four people.The other thread of action is related to the work in the rice fields. The workers, all women sacrifice their health for a kilogram of rice per day. The desperation of poverty is all poured in the scenes in which the women all work together for their miserable wages. Neither Francesca, nor Silvana or the two men belong to this world. However, as the movie approaches its conclusion the two women become aware of the feelings that grew inside them as they toiled 40 days in the rice fields. They are now just like those other workers. These feelings flood the hearts of the two women when all they worked for is threatened by the thief's greed and the soldier's indifference. There flooding of the rice is the supporting metaphor for the rush of feelings in the two women.The soundtrack, although rarely the focus of the action is, very effective. I would only mention the climactic fallen angel scene in which the music alone tells the story.All in all, this is a masterpiece and it deserves many viewings.

Despite the fact that this film isn't available with English subtitles, (french is the closest!) it isn't so difficult to follow, and it is a satisfying experience. It comes across as a realistic portrayal of life in the rice fields of Italy, and is undoubtedly well-made with a haunting, natural quality about the whole production. Some of the scenes tend to be a bit overdrawn, and samey, but this doesn't detract from the overall intensity which is helped in no small part by the acting. It's quite clear that professional actors were used alongside non-actors, and this adds a certain poignant interest to the proceedings. The best performance is given by that seriously underrated actress from the USA - Doris Dowling, and it makes it all the more difficult to understand why she didn't have a far more high profile career in her own country. For fans of continental cinema in general, this is well worthy of interest.

For the first 75% of this film, I wasn't particularly interested in the film. Most of the reason was that I found the female leads to be so stupid, as they debased themselves repeatedly to gain the favor of a horrid petty crook. I guess this realistic, as some women do this, but I felt no connection to the characters, so my attention waned.Fortunately, I did continue watching, because as the film developed further, so did the characters. And, this was all capped off by a dandy ending that I WON'T elaborate on because this would ruin the film.This film is a Neo-Realistic Italian film, in that most of the actors were apparently not professionals and the subject matter was rather mundane (this is not meant to be an insult--just a comment about the style of film). While I didn't like it nearly as much as De Sica's films of that era, it was well worth watching and better than many other Neo-Realistic films.FYI--parents should know that although this is an older film, there is some nudity. It's not super explicit, but does occur in the film.