Bitter Rice

Original title: Riso amaro

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Vittorio Gassman, Doris Dowling, and Silvana Mangano in Bitter Rice (1949)

Two criminals on the run end up working in a rice field and decide to recruit other workers for their next robbery.Two criminals on the run end up working in a rice field and decide to recruit other workers for their next robbery.Two criminals on the run end up working in a rice field and decide to recruit other workers for their next robbery.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.6/10

5.1K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 2 nominations total

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Trivia
Bitter Rice (1949) was a product of the Italian neorealism style. The Italian title of the film is based on a pun; since the Italian word riso can mean either "rice" or "laughter," riso amaro can be taken to mean either "bitter laughter" or "bitter rice."

Connections
Edited into Bellissimo: Immagini del cinema italiano (1985)

User reviews27

Review

Featured review

9/10

a true Italian classic

Although its mold of 1949 appears somewhat melodramatic today, the black and white 'Riso Amaro' (= Italian for 'Bitter Rice') surely ranks among the classics in film history.

This very Italian product by Guiseppe de Santis shows a pretty ordinary crime story, excellently interwoven with an impressive decor of harsh season labor in the rice-fields of Northern Italy. The thousands of women, up to their ankles in the water, breaking their backs in the burning sun to earn a few bucks, make a truly great setting.

'Riso Amaro' has been labeled as 'neo-realism'. Another issue worth mentioning is its female lead Silvana Mangano, ex miss Rome. To the standards of 1949 miss Mangano's performance in this film was shocking. This earned 'Riso Amaro' a lot of publicity, in particular in strongly Roman Catholic Italy.