Arroz amargo

The principal flaw of this film is the performance of Doris Dowling, mistakenly cast in the role of Francesca. Dowling seems capable of only one facial expression, something between a scowl and a sneer. Why such a wooden American actress was cast in this role when there were so many budding actresses in Italy at the time must remain a mystery.

This film ranks just below such classics of the Italian neo-realist movement as The Bicycle Thief, Shoeshine, Open City, and La Strada. Turner Classic Movies is to be applauded for making this rarely seen gem available on their channel. There is a nearly show-stopping performance by Silvana Mangano, a performance that must have been electrifying at the time. Earthy, sensual, voluptuous, Mangano performs with unshaven armpits which she puts on full display when she puts her hands behind her head. This was a gutsy move for an unknown actress who was a former beauty queen presumably aiming for stardom, but this little touch adds immeasurably to the brooding sense of poverty and desperation that pervade the film. It has been said that if Mangano had had more drive and been less controlled by her husband, Dino de Laurentiis, she might have achieved the stature of Loren and Lollobrigida. But alas, it was not to be. The only other notable performance of her career was in Visconti's Death in Venice.

If this film seems excessively proletarian, even Marxist, in its outlook, it is important to remember that Italy was impoverished after WWII and that the Communist Party very nearly came to power in 1948 and probably would have done so had it not been for CIA intervention. The crane shots and other camera work, as well as the superb acting of the women in the smaller roles, are masterful in depicting the drudgery of the toil of the women working in the rice fields. Other aspects of the camera work are masterful. Probably the most famous, or notorious, scene in the film is the one where Mangano takes a reed and playfully pokes Vittorio Gassman with it. Gassman's character is not amused; he takes the reed from her and proceeds to whip her with it repeatedly. Notice the way the camera moves with Gassman as he approaches her, then moves with Mangano as she tries to move away from him in terror. This is masterful camera work. The finale of the film, which I won't reveal here, is shattering as well. The acting of Gassman and Raf Vallone is superb as well.

Until recently this film was unavailable on DVD with English subtitles, but it has recently become available and can be ordered on Amazon. It would be a great addition to anyone's film library. And one final note: another reviewer cautioned parents that there is nudity in this film. This is incorrect. I think he is probably referring to the crane shot that shows the women bathing in the river. They do indeed appear nude, but if you look more closely you will see that they are wearing body stockings and are fully clothed.

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!

In BITTER RICE, Silvana Mangano is reminiscent of a minor-league Anna Magnani, only younger and prettier with the accent on her bosom in BITTER RICE. She's earthy and sensual--as is the film--once described by the NY Times "as earthy and elemental as any picture you are likely to see."

And it is elemental, the story of misguided passions among four people in the rice fields of Northern Italy and there's no subtlety in the telling. It gets off to a rather slow start while developing the characters played by Silvana Mangano, Raf Vallone, Doris Dowling and Vittorio Gassmann. Only Vallone, as an army sergeant, is a "good guy" among a band of thieves destined to face tragic consequences of their unbridled lust and fatal attraction. He resembles an Italian version of the young Burt Lancaster.

Along the way, there are some interesting scenes of workers in the rice fields and their work habits, enhanced by moments whereby they chant and sing what they are supposed to be thinking as a sort of counterpoint to the action unfolding in the story.

Done in the popular neo-realistic manner prevalent during post-World War II in Italy, it tells a convoluted tale that, in the end, only tells us that crime does not pay. The story heads toward a stormy conclusion in a slaughter house, engrossing right up until the fabricated final moments for Mangano, a fitting conclusion to a steamy melodrama.

Interesting to see American actress Doris Dowling in this Italian film and giving one of the best performances as a woman who stands up to the cunning and perverse heroine with some threats of her own. Too bad her film career in the U.S. never fully developed.

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.

I had heard very much about this film and particularly about Silvana Mangano's very sexy presence before finally seeing it, and was rather disappointed. Silvana is like a young Ingrid Bergman but already fallen in advance in the trap of Italian neorealistic temptation to vulgarity - she is outrageously vulgar, although innocent, while the other actress, Doris Dowling's acting, is so much better. Vittorio Gassman is very young here and gives a virtuoso performance as the villain, while Raf Vallone, vying with him in villainy, turns out ultimately sympathetic after all. The strength of the film is in its dramatic quality, the drama is almost operatic in constantly more striking effects, and all the scenes in the rice magazine are a joy to behold for the cineast. The film is slightly outdated today, the working conditions and routines of the rice field workers are a bit obsolete in their leftist proletarian tendencies, but it's a great drama and film. Silvana Mangano was only 19 at the time, this film made her a star forever, but with time it becomes more obvious that it is Doris Dowling's film more than hers.