Riz amer

Mud wrestling, a MacGuffin in the form of a necklace, beautiful legs, pretty faces, inclinations toward the musical genre and lesbian sex. The team of screenwriters packed all kind of things into their work – which, with the passage of time, seems to have been mainly for marketing purposes – but not much neorealism remained as a result. For a film noir movie that would have elicited the bitter laughter of the original Italian title, Riso amaro (riso = past participle of ridere, to laugh), there are melodramatic moments that are too seriously intended and a preponderance of women who do not control anyone’s destiny, but only passively submit to brute masculine power. Bitter Rice compelled me to see De Santis not as a leading representative of the post-war neorealism school, revealing and changing, but as a pioneer of pink neorealism, which used social issues and leftist ideals only as a front for straightforward commercial entertainment. 65% (12/08/2012)