Rating: 4/5
Criterion Challenge 2023 | 43/52 | 1940s
Italian Neorealism, but make it sexy.
A man on the radio discusses the physically demanding and unvarying labor in rice farming. Women can only do this work.
Two officers pursue a jewel thief, Walter (Vittorio Gassman), at the train station. He evades long enough to meet with his accomplice, Francesa (Doris Dowling), and tells her to hide among the rice workers.
In the center of the women workers is Silvana (Silvana Mangano), who dances and chews gum. Walter tries to blend in by dancing with her, but the police spot him, and he runs off. Silvana notes she likes the way he dances.
Silvana sees Francesa is in cahoots with Walter and helps her get a job. But Silvana picks up on Francesa being a thief and turns on her.
The boss orders those without papers to go elsewhere, leaving Francesa and others hanging. Francesa suggests they go anyway, work twice as hard, and prove capable.
They all makeup songs — eventually, scabs cause the other women to cease work and fight. Silvana points out that Francesa is the leader of the scabs. All the women chase her down.
Silvana goes to Marco (Raf Vallone) to turn Francesa in, but Marco refuses to snitch.
— Shouldn't she go to prison? — Prison was invented by people who have never been there.
The workers all decide to unify. Either they all work, or none of them work.
When Walter shows up, Francesa learns that the jewels she stole were fakes. This news gives her a sense of relief.
Walter plans a con to steal a large quantity of rice, pulling some petty thieves into his plan. Silvana is attracted to him, so he folds her into his plot. He doesn’t tell Silvana the jewels are fake, so he uses them as a draw.
Giuseppe De Santis follows a trend that Fellini and other Italian directors would pick up — the mingling of neorealist concepts with more poetic visual motifs.
De Santis blends pulp and melodrama with a neorealist core.
The film centers on women and their labor. The mistake it makes is critiquing a specific type of femininity — the gum-chewing, boogie-woogie dancing women are the impulsive fools, particularly Silvana, who unwittingly becomes an accomplice.
Silvana is the product of capitalist ideals and is “wrong.” The camera lingers and sensualizes Silvana, going beyond the story, and only serves lurid purposes. Silvana being sexy in the movie isn’t an issue, but framing her while critiquing her is trying to have it both ways.
Silvana gets some redeeming lines. She works in the same rice fields as everyone else.
— Boogie-woogie, novels, cheap tabloids, that's all you know. — Right, that's all I know with my feet in the water all day long.
The film briefly addresses the privileges given to conventionally attractive women but will not allow it significant focus because of the importance placed on prettiness.
My gripes aside, this film is still a well-shot, smartly-paced experience that helped push the next generation of Italian filmmakers forward.