Bitter Rice

Year			1948
Original title			Riso amaro
Original lang.			Italian
Country			Italy
Length			1:48
Director			Giuseppe De Santis
Starring			Silvana Mangano Vittorio Gassman Raf Vallone Doris Dowling Lia Corelli Silvana Mangano Vittorio Gassman Raf Vallone Doris Dowling Lia Corelli

One of Italian neorealism's biggest box-office successes, the racy Bitter Rice injected a major dose of eroticism into the movement's socially-committed concerns, and made an international pin-up of its voluptuous young star Silvana Mangano, prototype of the Italian cinema sexpot. The second directorial effort of critic and screenwriter Giuseppe De Santis, one of neorealism's key figures, the film was ostensibly intended as an exposé of exploitative working conditions in rice paddies of Italy's Po Valley. Mangano, provocatively clad in the tightest of sweaters and the skimpiest of short-shorts, plays farm worker Silvana, labouring up to her knees in mud while her head is in the clouds, dreaming of American-style glamour. The lurid plot has her becoming involved with a violent criminal (Vittorio Gassman) and his moll on the run from jewellery heist. Full of flamboyant camerawork and other stylistic extravagances — including a famous boogie-woogie dance between Mangano and Gassman in a train station — Bitter Rice was described by one critic as a "neorealist colossal" for its large budget and elaborate production schedule. De Santis was both criticized for debasing neorealism and praised for reinventing it with popular elements.