Bitter Rice (De Santis, 1949): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.15pm
This 35mm presentation, also screening on May 22nd, is part of the Italian Neorealism season at the cinema. Full details here.
New Yorker review:
The early-generation genre mashup “Bitter Rice,” from
1949, fuses the class-based politics—and the on-location authenticity—of
neorealism with a smoldering romantic melodrama. It’s centered on the
seasonal employment of migrant farmworkers—all women—in the rice paddies
of northern Italy. A jewel thief and housemaid named Francesca (Doris
Dowling), who’s hiding a stolen necklace, takes refuge with a crew of
farmhands, working alongside them and living with them in requisitioned
military barracks. Francesca is befriended by a younger laborer named
Silvana (Silvana Mangano), but tension arises when they both fall for an
earnest army officer (Raf Vallone). Then a sharp operator named Walter
(Vittorio Gassman)—Francesca’s partner in crime, lover, and
employer—shows up at the farm. The film’s team of six screenwriters
reveal, with journalistic avidity, details of the landowners’ predatory
chicanery, conflicts between union and non-union workers, farmhands’
secret communications by way of song, and the women’s day-to-day lives
and grim backstories. The director, Giuseppe De Santis, films the
turbulent action with a blend of intimacy and spectacle, in
exhilaratingly spontaneous dance scenes and shocking outbursts of
violence alike.
Richard Brody
Here (and above) is the trailer.
No comments:
Post a Comment