Bitter Rice

Bitter Rice (Riso amaro, 1949) is an Italian crime drama you can watch online on iFILM. Giuseppe De Santis works the seam between neorealism and almost Hollywood-grade passion: small-time thief Francesca hides from the police among the seasonal women who harvest the rice fields of the Po Valley. Her partner Walter trails after her, and he brings a robbery scheme with him.

Out on the flooded paddies, where hundreds of women stand knee-deep in mud through the working day, four lives knot together. Francesca (Doris Dowling), her dangerous lover Walter (Vittorio Gassman), a young sergeant named Marco (Raf Vallone) and the peasant worker Silvana (Silvana Mangano), who dreams of the glossier life she sees in American magazines. Between them run stolen jewels, broken hopes and a jealousy that drags everyone down.

The film turned twenty-year-old Silvana Mangano into a star and became a touchstone of postwar Italian cinema, where hard labor and raw sensuality sit side by side. Its screenplay was up for an Academy Award, and the images of workers wading through the water long ago landed in the textbooks. De Santis never prettifies poverty; he shows how want bends people out of shape. If you love older European cinema with a social charge, stream Bitter Rice (1949) online on iFILM.