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.
