JOURNEY TO ITALY is a film about a failed marriage, unpleasant past, the empty present and uncertain future. The couple comes to Italy, in order to sell their inherited property. However, staying in Italy becomes a conflict of character and both spouses go into seclusion, unaware of the beauty of life and attractions that surround them ...This movie is a combination between the social neo-realism and the psychological drama. The story is difficult to understand. It contains genuine periods of loneliness and anxiety. Characterization is very good and is based on changes in mood, emotions and the life logic. The symbolism of the Italian landscape and culture has probably stirred the passions of the majority of viewers. Although the couple is emotionally and spiritually depleted, and their marriage is jarring and painful and they can not resist the colorful images that surround them. The main protagonists are symbolically faced with marital problems such as infidelity and sterility. The final scene in the film, which contains a religious ceremony, symbolically shows that the protagonists must find more faith in love and preservation of marriage. Frankly, I would not agree.Ingrid Bergman as Katherine Joyce is a lonely woman, who would like to run away from her unfaithful husband, but to her almost everything in this world is no longer interesting. Ms. Bergman is quite good in this role. However, it is obvious that she has no such lightness and passion for performance. George Sanders as Alexander 'Alex' Joyce is really a great choice for this role. The actor that barely shows emotions. Sarcasm and cynicism in the air.For the Italian cinematography this movie is really something new. I do not experience it as a turning point. This is a very solid psychological drama.

Journey to Italy is a truly beautiful, and utterly relatable tale of two very different people, stuck in a defunct marriage, finding themselves, and love, in Italy. The city of Naples is displayed with utter class here--this movie is as much a call for tourism, as it is a love story. Many great museums, as well as macabre catacombs are displayed, as Katherine seeks distractions from her failing marriage. Rossellini knows he's got a gorgeous backdrop to tell his story, and doesn't waste it for a second. The conclusion had me moved to tears. If you get a chance to see it on Criterion's gorgeous blu-ray, absolutely give it a watch. It's well worth it.

Roberto Rossellini wasn't about to rest too much on his laurels - or let a little thing like a controversy slow him down (an affair with Ingrid Bergman that wrecked marriages, albeit produced daughter Isabella which is nothing short of miraculous) - so a film like Journey to Italy seemed like just the thing to get him motivated and challenged. It's a challenging picture. There's not the same sort of melodramatic drive through a lot of it that you see in Rome Open City or even Stromboli - at least until perhaps the last third. I remember seeing the clips in Scorsese's Italian movies documentary, though it was hard to come by except on over-priced VHS online, until the Criterion collection put out a Rossellini/Bergman box-set, which gave me my chance last year.I have to wonder if Kubrick might've watched this film before making Eyes Wide Shut, if only for the early scenes. But there's little chance for real romance here; Bergman and George Sanders are the married couple, on holiday in Rome. Well, partly holiday anyway, more like an estate deal that's being closed on (an inhereted villa in Naples actually), and she's bored out of her mind... at first. Very slowly as she goes on trips to museums, encouraged by an acquaintance, there is a certain mood about Rome, a history, the objects which loom over her and speak to something MORE than what she is experiencing in her life and marriage, that do something to her.Of course, stuffy George Sanders can't see that - nor that their marriage isn't very happy at the moment, or about there being a lost lover in the equation as well (flirting for Sanders, too). And there may be more trouble on the horizon as well, but what's so fascinating is that Rossellini keeps a lot of things under the surface, the unspoken between the two, the tension, is what has to be put forward. For drama, this can be tricky, and Rossellini with his documentary background is able to get his actors to such a place as to be totally comfortable in their characters - people who are paradoxically uncomfortable with where they're at, romantically, spiritually (spirit's a big one), and geographically. And in a sense the ultimate message here reminds me of the line from Night of the Living Dead, where an unhappy married woman says to her husband: "We might not like living together... but dying together won't solve anything." Is this couple sort of, you know, trapped? Most likely, and the zombies are actual conflicts they're avoiding in life. A lot of what they end up seeing together is death. This comes by the way right when they tentatively agree after a really bad argument (there's a lot of arguing here by the way, but all believable because it's these two stars who are tremendous talents. They're taken along on an archaeological expedition, and they're privy to the remains of people from long ago. It's a startling, breathtaking sight for them, maybe more for Sanders in a way because he hasn't already been exposed to these bewildering, eye-opening sights like Bergman has. And this realization of one's mortality dawns ever closer.Journey to Italy was a prized darling among the French New Wave, and perhaps it's because of the questions it raises about life and death, love and loss, and having any sort of REASON for anything, that gives it an existential edge. Have things been too petty for them? Can they reconcile? The ending is where Rossellini finally lets things boil over dramatically speaking: in a way this is a more sophisticated film, if a little harder to exactly "enjoy" outside of a sort of intellectual level (unlike, say, Open City), but when Bergman and Sanders are torn apart, if only briefly, by a parade, it becomes a BIG struggle, and that's what counts. What will you do with the time you have here? Love, squabble, fight, bicker, take things in and experience things? Maybe all of those.I'm glad the movie was re-discovered and championed by those crazy bunch of Cashier du Cinema folks; the movie works its way ever so slowly on you, and has the layers of great art revealing itself. Did I mention how good these two actors are, especially Bergman again with her husband/musee? Good, it's worth repeating.

(Spoilers) This is the story of an upper class English couple (Alexander and Katherine) traveling to Italy to settle up the sale of a villa that Alex had inherited from an uncle. From the fist scenes on we see the friction in the marriage--the fact that they take separate bedrooms is not a good sign. When either of the two hints that there may be some spark left to their marriage, the other quashes it with a contrary act or comment. When Alex suggests that they have never really known each other and perhaps they can start over, Katherine says, "Let's go down to the bar." During an argument, Alex haughtily tells Katherine that, "Of course there are a few things I don't like about you. Your lack of a sense of humor, your ridiculous romanticism." Each plays to the jealousy of the other throughout the movie.I did not feel that the actors were challenged to play beyond their comfort zone. Sanders can play a somewhat cynical, upper class Englishman without breaking a sweat and Bergman, while good, turns in a performance that is not particularly noteworthy, although just having her on screen is a plus. The dialog is quite stilted--in fact I thought the film had been dubbed into English until I did some lip reading to determine otherwise.The movie offers a bit of a travelogue for Naples and the surrounding area. Those scenes are captured during Katherine's solo sightseeing trips after Alex had gotten disgusted and headed off to Capri to stay with some friends. The urban scenes that Katherine sees as she drives to various attractions are the most artificially inserted I have seen. It is clear that Katherine is being filmed in a studio, and then some stock footage is being shown of street scenes. The filming at tourist highlights were the most enjoyable parts of the movie for me. Those scenes would have been much better in color--I am sure that the Naples harbor looking toward Capri must be spectacular, but it's rather unimpressive as seen here.The ending is about as preposterous as I have seen. After all of the antagonism between Alex and Katherine, less that a minute after Katherine emphatically says to Alex, "I despise you," the two are embracing and saying, "I love you."This movie has been praised as a masterpiece and as the first modern movie. Those who think it is a masterpiece were certainly plugged in to this at a higher level than I. And is "Citizen Kane" not a modern movie? Or De Sicas's "Shoeshine" or "Bicycle Thief" for that matter?