Bitter Rice (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

BITTER RICE (Lux Film, 1949), Giuseppe De Santis' post-war depiction of female rice-field workers in Northern Italy's Po Valley, is a film classic that defies categorization. Part melodrama/film noir/allegory/documentary, it is probably most famous for launching the career of Silvana Mangano who, at 19, not only oozes with earthy sensuality, but also delivers a magnetically charged performance. Her character arcs from a self-assured, independent leader among her co-workers to a desperate, vulnerable and ultimately tragic woman. Mangano is also remembered by fantasy film buffs for co-starring with Kirk Douglas in ULYSSES (1954), in which she plays the dual roles of Ulysses' wife Penelope and Circe, the siren queen.The plot in BITTER RICE deals with the rice pickers' most beloved comrade (Mangano) who gets mixed up with a small-time criminal (Vittorio Gassman) and agrees to aid him in stealing the harvested crop. Meanwhile, the crook's girlfriend and accomplice (Doris Dowling) begins to reform upon meeting an army sergeant (Raf Vallone) stationed in the valley. What lies central in the film is the role reversal between the two main female characters and the moral conflicts that result.Director De Santis has this all play out within a neorealist style that also embraces familiar Hollywood trappings, making BITTER RICE the pulpy masterpiece it deservedly holds claim to being.Criterion's special edition - transferred off the original 35mm camera negative no less - is gorgeous, capturing all the richness of Otello Martelli's black and white cinematography. Bonus features include a 2008 documentary on director Giuseppe De Santis, a 2002 interview with screenwriter Carlo Lizzani and the original trailer.My highest recommendation.

Silvana was great!

A post war precursor to future Russ Meyer melodramas. This Italian pot boiler features lusty seasonal peasant women rice field workers, the equally ravenous, seemingly unemployed men they attract, and the hucksters who prey on both.Any excuse to emphasize bosums and cleavage is celebrated, including a wet paddy field all female melee. The stooped rice planting position is used to great advantage, advancing this agenda.Our two flawed, yet likable heroines, usher an era of full figured bad girls that Russ Meyer would later exaggerate. Here, we must remember forties sensibilities insisted moral dilemmas be resolved rather traditionally. That aside, the hard scrabble reality of seasonal field work, its tradition of song, dormitory life, and compensation, makes for fascinating viewing. I'll never eat another risotto without appreciating the generations of voluptuous women, bent at the waist, making it possible. Brava!

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Hard to get past the melodramatic aspects.

"Riso Amaro" (Bitter Rice) is a study of square love of two beautiful women (Silvana Mangano and Doris Dowling) working in the harvest of rice in North Italy, a jewel robber (Vittorio Gassman) and an ex-sergeant (Raf Vallone). This film epitomizes Italy’s neo-realism movies produced in the postwar era along with Vittorio De Sica’s “Ladri di biciclette” (Bicycle Thieves) and Roberto Rossellini’s “Roma città aperta“ (Open City). This is also memorized as the dramatic romance that led gorgeous and sensuous Silvana Mangano to the stardom. Noteworthy is the film’s vividness illustrating that the Italian people are trying to pull out of the WWII devastation in any way they can. The Criterion blu ray has been so beautifully restored that the black and white film looks as if photographed in technicolor.

my husband has long wanted to see this film. We enjoyed it very much. Its reputation for being "sexy" was somewhat old fashioned, today it seemed quite innocent and even amusing. I am not sure I would have bought it otherwise as the cost of package from US was more than the item itself! Still, thank you Amazon for allowing me to get it!