146 - Bitter Rice, 1949, Italy. Dir. Giuseppe De Santis.

Friday, May 26, 2017

146 - Bitter Rice, 1949, Italy. Dir. Giuseppe De Santis.

Who was that man?

How should I know?  All I know is that he sure can boogie-woogie!

Silvana likes to boogie-woogie.  She is a dancer.

Marco is talking to her.  He is a soldier.  He is jealous.

He has been watching Silvana from behind the bushes.  As the women bathe.

She has caught him.  And come to talk to him.

He is jealous of a man named Walter.

Who indeed sure can boogie-woogie.  And who also likes to boogie-woogie.  A lot.

Marco met Silvana at the rice farm.  When the soldiers were shipping out and the rice workers were coming in.

He cleaned out his bunk as she was coming in to claim it.  He flirted with her.  He fell in love with her.

Francesca is one of many women who come to the rice paddies in northern Italy during the 40-day harvest.

The women arrive by train.  They sleep in bunks.  They stand in puddles.  They harvest the paddies.

They work in water.  They work in rain.

But Silvana met Walter before she met Marco.

She met him back in town.  In the square.  When she was dancing.  And he was trying to get away from the police.

He danced with her to hide from the police.

Walter is a thief.  Walter has a girlfriend named Francesca.  Walter has a very expensive bracelet.

Walter gave the bracelet to his girlfriend Francesca to put in her bandana to keep on her person at all times.

Then he saw Silvana dancing in the square.  And he joined her.

He put on a big hat and danced with Silvana so that the police would not recognize him.

Silvana bumped the hat while they were dancing.

And the hat fell off.

And the police saw Walter.

And Walter ran.

And as the women boarded the train to go to the farm to harvest the rice, Silvana befriended Francesca.

Of course she did.

Why would she not?

She saw that the police wanted Walter.

She saw that Walter embraced Francesca.

She saw that Walter gave Francesca something.

Something.

What could it be?

Whatever it was, it was something that the police wanted back.

How exciting!

A thrill.  An adventure.  A challenge.

Silvana wants the bad boy.

She wants to steal the bad boy from the bad boy's girl.  She wants to be the bad boy's girl.

She wants to have whatever he has stolen.

She wants to have it all.

Now here stands Marco, a good man, who wants to love her and take care of her, and she will have nothing to do with him.

Because he loves her.

She does not care for the desperate type.

Because that is not exciting.

Marco does not boogie-woogie.

"You'd better stop coming around the farm."  She tells him.

Walter is here now.  And she will go with him.

But Marco will not stop coming around the farm.

Silvana will not stop pursuing Walter.

Silvana has the bracelet.

She has stolen it from Francesca.  Because Francesca did not keep it on her person at all times.

But what none of them knows is that Walter has come to steal the rice.

He no longer cares about the bracelet.  Watch it to find out why.

He no longer cares about Francesca.

He now cares about Silvana because she is going to help him.  She can have the bracelet.  He wants the rice.

Is it possible that things might not turn out so well?

Bitter Rice is a juicy crime drama.

It is like an Italian version of an American film noir.

It was released in 1949, which is just the right time for film noir.

Giuseppe De Santis had worked with Luchino Visconti in 1942 on his first film.  Ossessione.

Obsession.

The Italian version of The Postman Always Rings Twice.  One of the hallmarks of film noir.

And there are moments here in the rice silo and the beef barn where the light shafts shift through the wood slats.  And the grain skids down through the wood chutes.  And the flood flumes down through the trough sluice.  And Miss Rice Worker of 1948 stands on the dock deck.  And climbs the clapboard platform like a gallows scaffold.  And the beef hangs down from the meat hooks.  And the slab drops down as the pulley turns.  And the rusty chain crawls across the sprocket teeth.

And the sciv stabs flesh like a butcher knife.

And the black guns come out in the dark shadows.

And lovers betray each other in the showdown.

Until the man hangs down like the beef from the meat hook.

And the woman falls from the clapboard platform like a gallows scaffold.

And rice is sprinkled like dirt over the body of the dead.

For everyone in film noir discovers that the scales will always balance.

That death is the wages of sin.

That crime must pay.

With bitter laughter.

Over bitter rice.

Until the bitter end.