Journey to Italy

Journey to Italy (Viaggio in Italia) (1954)

Runtime: 85 minutes

Directed by: Roberto Rossellini

Starring: Ingrid Bergman, George Sanders, Maria Mauban, Anna Proclemer, Paul Muller

From: A few different Italian and French companies

My first Roberto Rossellini film… and also my last Roberto Rossellini film . I realize many (though not all) will vehemently disagree with my opinion, but let me explain. Randomly, last night I was struck that nothing from Rossellini had been viewed by me before. Thus, I went to the Criterion Channel and picked the film in English starring two actors I knew well-Ingrid Bergman & George Sanders.

A couple who I quickly discovered were both vapid, uninteresting people were in Italy to sell property they inherited. The “plot” is incredibly flimsy in that there isn’t much of a traditional story… it’s just random scenes, really, and that alone is not terribly appealing to me, sorry. It would have been nice to have cared that a bad marriage was experiencing a deterioration in an ironic setting (vacation in a literally Romantic country); lamentably, this did not occur.

Truthfully, the movie worked better for me as a travelogue of Naples and the surrounding area-including Pompeii-than the drama & trauma of that marriage’s dissolution. Sanders did play an amusing jerk (IMO) but otherwise I did not really get or understand this picture. Perhaps my tune would be a little different had I liked the ending—like many, I don’t know what they were going for there. Heck, the kerfuffle over what the movie’s English title is (either Strangers, Voyage to Italy, Voyage in Italy or Journey to Italy) is of more interest than the “plot.”

As there are plenty of directors I need to experience for the first time or (especially) do a deeper dive on, I’m OK with avoiding someone who I now know was an inspiration for someone else I don’t care for… Antonioni.