SUNDAY EVENING, MAY 7

BITTER RICE / RISO AMARO  7:00

Director Giuseppe De Santis blends Hollywood noir visual techniques with neo-realism, and creates a singular recipe for the intersection of criminal activity and sexual manipulation. Two thieving lovers separate, with the woman disappearing into the anonymity of the rural rice fields. The lusty life she encounters (embodied by the voluptuous earth-mother she befriends) proves fragile when her lover returns with criminal schemes that threaten the very fabric of the life she's discovered. BITTER RICE was a sensation in 1949, one of the linchpins in the development of foreign arthouse cinema in the United States. It made Silvana Mangano into a worldwide sex symbol, and launched the international career of Vittorio Gassman. Doris Dowling, best known to noir fans as the murdered wife of Alan Ladd in THE BLUE DAHLIA, was forced to leave America in order to land her most significant role. With: Vittorio Gassman, Silvana Mangano, Doris Dowling, Raf Vallone, Checci Rissone, Nico Pepe, Adriana Sivieri, Lia Corelli, Maria Grazia Francia, Dedi Ristori, Anna Maestri, Mariemma Bardi Maria Capuzzo, Isabella Zennaro, Carlo Mazzarella, Ermanno Randi

ITALY (1949, 108 min)  Director: Giuseppe De Santis. Screenplay/Story: Carlo Lizzani, Gianni Puccini, Ivo Perrelli, Corrado Alvaro, Giuseppe De Santis. Dialogue: Franco Monicelli. Photography: Otello Martelli. Music: Goffredo Petrassi

SEAGULLS ARE DYING IN THE HARBOR / MEEUWEN STERVEN IN DE HAVEN  9:15

A trio of Belgian filmmakers combined to create this breathtaking work, the last gasp of existentialism in European noir—an anguished cry for the lost wholeness of mankind. A nameless man on the run (has he committed a murder?) dodges and drifts his way through the polyglot architecture of Antwerp, a city defaced by war but now made visually schizophrenic by the ungainly modernism intervening into a formerly Gothic cityscape. His valiant attempts to make human connections are chronicled as he desperately looks for a way to clear himself and find a path to a normal life. Julien Schoenaerts (sometimes called the "Brando of Belgium") is the anchor of this aching slice of experimental mid-century expressionism—a dark miracle of collaborative filmmaking. With: Julien Schoenaerts, Dora Van Der Groen, Alice De Graef, Jenny Deheyder, Gisele Peeters, Piet Frison, Tine Balder, Tone Brulin, Panchita Van De Perre, Marcel Phillippe

BELGIUM (1955, 94 min)  Directors: Rik Kuypers, Ivo Michiels, Roland Verhavert. Screenplay: Rik Kuypers, Ivo Michiels, Roland Verhavert. Photography: Johan Blansjaar. Art Direction: E. G. Demeyst, Jaak Van Luyth. Music: Max Damasse, Jack Sels, Jos Van Der Smissen, Andrea Casares