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Journey to Italy More at IMDbPro »Viaggio in Italia (original title)

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25 out of 28 people found the following review useful:
A patient, beautiful film that portrays a convincing marriage in crisis against the beauty and details of Naples, 23 August 2004
Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK

The death of her uncles brings married couple Catherine and Alex to Naples in order that they might handle the sale of their inherited villa. From the first journey they make together, there is a real frost in the air and an apparent lack of love between them. After several difficult nights together where they acknowledge the tenuous state of their relationship and decide to use the holiday to spend time apart as opposed to being alone together. As Catherine heads off to catch up on the history and museums of the area while Alex idles around Capri, flirting and enjoying the friendly company of the young ladies he meets there.

It has been said that not a great deal happens in this film and those that say this are mostly correct – but they are not being critical of this fact, merely stating it. The basic plot is: couple comes to Italy with marriage problems and, in between fights, travel around the area – and that's about it in terms of definable action. However to simply leave it at that is to do this film a great injustice because so much of it is about more than just what is happening at any given moment and it is actually a beautifully shot and moving story of love within marriage. We join the story where Catherine and Alex (in a very well drawn marriage) have both come to the conclusion that their marriage must nearly be over. Neither really wants that but neither can manage to make things change; frustrated they go off and travel around Naples alone.

At this point the film balances two aspects with real skill. On one hand the film is a really intimate travel film, not just focusing on the sweeping scenery of the region but getting closer, looking at the specific histories, sites of interest and the people that reside there. Its strength is that it is never just about this because the scenery is just the backdrop for the two characters to discover themselves undergoing soul searching – but in a casual manner, not a heavy, gut wrenching fashion, more of a dawning realisation than anything else. This is subtly down and all the better for it; a convincing marriage that has been worn away to the point that the couple have simply forgotten to just be in love and instead have allowed other aspects of their relationship (the sarcasm, the niggling, the familiarity) to become the main part of their daily interactions. Those who have not been married or in a long-term relationship may not 'get' this film but I can assure you that it will likely be recognisable to you if you have been.

The chemistry between Sanders and Bergman is very convincing – I felt like there had been love between them but it had just been forgotten. Individually they both played their parts really well – there was no real 'eureka in the bathtub' moment until the end but, up till then, we had seen both the characters pick up little things along the way in a very able manner. The support cast were all good trimming round the edges but, in the version I saw, the dubbing into English was a little heavy at times and made it difficult to judge their performances. However the three stars here are all very good and drive the film without anybody else. Three stars? Sanders, Bergman and Naples itself.

Overall this is a slow film that has very little happening in it and, for that reason, it may frustrate some modern audiences who prefer their romantic dramas to have more spark and energy to it – however this is much more convincing for being subtle and elegant. The playing of Sanders and Bergman is pitch perfect and help keep our interest in their marriage alive, while the detail and sweep of Naples is well used as a suitable backdrop for them to rediscover their love against. If it were remade today it would be a massively different film, but this should be enjoyed for what it is – a great film that is of its time and should be enjoyed as such even if it requires at least a bit of patience.

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17 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
Rossellini's masterstroke, 5 October 2001
Author: Dr_Shafea from Canada

"Viaggio in Italia" is a unique experience, a beautiful work of art, and perhaps Rossellini's masterpiece, though I equally cherish GERMANY YEAR ZERO and FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS. It can best be viewed on the big screen in order to fully grasp its mysterious beauties. But, alas, it is not for every taste. The film was a commercial disaster when it opened. But those perceptive "Cahiers du Cinema" critics - Godard, Rivette, Rohmer, Truffaut - justly hailed it as a modern masterpiece and placed in their list of ten best films of all time. Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders are nothing short of brilliant as the feuding British couple who travel to Naples to close their holiday home. Rossellini's breathtaking documentary scenes in the Mediterranean background are perfectly melded with the fictional story of the couple and their state of mind. It all comes down to that final miraculous moment that no written words can describe. Subtle, mysterious and beautiful, "Viaggio" ranks with the finest works in cinema.

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8 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
"This is the first time that we've been really alone ever since we married", 20 September 2008

Author: ackstasis from Australia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Even with the English language and two stars from Hollywood, Roberto Rossellini's 'Voyage in Italy (1954)' immediately distinguishes itself from every romantic drama to have ever come out of the United States. Rossellini was an Italian, and those Italians had a style that was all their own. The film opens with moving footage along a rough road, the camera mounted on the main characters' automobile. Shots like this lack the sheer smoothness and polish of Hollywood productions – which probably would have filmed everything before a rear-projection screen, anyway – and add an essential crudeness that breathes real-life into the settings and story; these are the lingering traces of Italian neorealism, which, by 1954, had already suffered an abrupt decline in popularity. Ingrid Bergman, then the director's wife, and George Sanders plays Katherine and Alex Joyce, a British couple who travel to Italy for a business/leisure trip. However, this disruption of their typical marital routine brings to the surface the couple's pressing conflicts and incompatibilities. Will the wonders of Naples sever or rejuvenate their love for each other?

'Voyage in Italy' is one of those pictures where nothing much happens, at least on the surface. However, this film is a narrow stream that runs deep. Behind every seemingly-inconsequential scene, every awkward glance, every moment of banal interaction, there lies the key to Katherine and Alex's marriage, and the reasons why it's falling apart. Katherine does a lot of lonely driving in Naples, observing the everyday comings-and-goings of the local folk from the vantage point of a passive, almost-nonexistent outsider. She counts the number of pregnant women in the street, and wonders dolefully whether or not her own refusal to bear children has torn apart her marriage. Alex, meanwhile, skirts the borders of infidelity, elevating his boredom by charming beautiful young ladies (none as beautiful as Bergman, it must be said) but thankfully pulling back at the crucial moment. If one were so inclined, the film also works just as well as a travelogue of sorts, exploring, with exquisite detail, the museums of Naples and Pompeii, and the Italian fascination with the dead.

By 1954, Ingrid Bergman had spent several years working in Italy, after her marital scandal with Rossellini temporarily lost her favour with American audiences. Here, as lovely as ever, she gives a subtle and touching performance, an unappreciated wife disillusioned by the lack of love in her marriage. George Sanders, the roguishly charismatic male suitor in countless 1940s dramas, here achieves a mature, refined level of charm, such that we're not surprised at his ability to woo even the younger ladies. Through their separate travels in Italy, both characters attain a catharsis of sorts, the focus to finally make a clear decision about the future of their relationship together. This leads to a simple but wonderful exchange of dialogue outside the Pompeii excavation site ("Life is so short"; "that's why one should make the most of it"), which seems as good a reason as any for the pair to abandon their seemingly-doomed marriage and start afresh. However, Hollywood sensibility here prevails over Rossellini's neorealism roots, and the realisation that life is fleeting instead encourages Katherine and Alex to reaffirm their love for each other.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
No longer bodies, but pure ascetic images, 6 August 2011

Author: chaos-rampant from Greece

This is the film that Truffaut writing for Cahiers proclaimed 'the first modern film', going on to praise Rossellini as the father of New Wave. If we don't want to be stridently literal about these things, I agree with him. A bunch of filmmakers who changed the face of cinema in the 60's are all connected to Rossellini and flow out from this film.

At the heart of it we have the familiar trope of a marriage falling apart, melodrama stuff. But modern, meaning understated and without the soaring emotion. We fill the gaps, providing our own understanding of how a relationship works. We participate as players.

So it's about this affair whose nothingness is revealed by the surrounding world, it withers away; the lavish villa with endless views of far horizon, the large, empty veranda where the two of them languish in comfortable lounge chairs. A little outside, it's the countryside of Naples that engulfs them with languid time and hot, lazy weather, a tabula rasa dotted with old ruins.

We're taken on a pilgrimage of these ruins, as the woman looking for a portent that will divine her predicament. The museum filled with statues, the old Roman fort, Vesuvius and Pompeii; Rossellini presents them as mute, ascetic images, images all pertaining to some austere representation into which the woman projects her own world coming to pass. None of them, of course, hold any answers, except as what they are - reminders of the perishable, impermanent world in which we try so hard to grow roots.

Meanwhile, back in Capri, the cynical husband is squandered in his own aimless voyage for something that will fill the time. He courts a woman, much like he did his wife perhaps all those years ago. He feigns and thrusts for desire. Finally he returns home with the same void gnawing inside. Passable stuff, as in La Notte some years later, but the important stuff is with the woman's journey; the Stromboli part of the film as it were.

It is all about the painful process by which ruins are made, time into memory. We are privy to one such enactment in ancient Pompeii (then still being excavated): into the hole once occupied by a dead body, that holds nothing now and is hollow except with shape, the archaeologists pour plaster in order to surmise the shape of that past. Yet what they retrieve is merely the replica of empty space.

Oh, there's the stupidly saccharine finale, no doubt imposed once again on Rossellini by his Italian distributors at Titanus. It's something to be on the lookout for, for how marvelously Rosssellini confounds his censors.

As the couple magically decide they finally love each other, the mob of peasants that surrounds them - participating in some local religious ceremony - cries out in jubilee about 'il miracolo!'. The two lovers are swept aside by people rushing to see, reunited in this nonsensical miracle. The final shot is of police offers looking stern as they inspect the scene, like the censors would the film. Whether or not we choose to accept the one miracle, boils down to whether or not we would the other.

I want to summarize Rossellini here; he's largely forgotten now - probably because when the cinema he envisioned finally took hold, he had already abandoned it. But he's one of the most important filmmakers we have known. You find out that so much of what eventually blossomed with film, grew first roots with him. His transcendent vision was exceptional.

The only misgiving - slight, very slight - is that everything is relatively precise with meaning. Empty space abounds here, the pure ascetic images, yet is mostly filled for us. We're left with simply unearthing the cast, reading the signs. Perhaps I'm saying this because he envisioned so far ahead that I'm comparing him in my mind with later filmmakers who abstracted deeper. No matter, Rossellini ushered cinema far enough.

Now it would be Antonioni's turn to shoulder it; he would supply the breathing, incomplete space into which the imagination can pour into. There is no cast that explains away with him, only the means of immersion into a space empty, waiting-to-be-filled with us (not by us). The ensuing voyage that finally brings us to The Passenger is one of the most fascinating that I know of, but that is covered elsewhere.

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4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
That gripping sense of mortality, 15 March 2005

Author: Hannamari (hunaja5@yahoo.com) from Spain

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The neorealist director Rossellini introduces us a firm cinematographic study of a couple (played by Ingrid Bergman, Rossellini's spouse at the time, and George Sanders) with marital problems midst of beautiful Italian landscapes.

I would above all underline the central theme of death, mortality, and the ever-so-relentless notion of the fleetingness of human life. The scenes with a funeral convoy (seen by Catherine/Bergman from her car), or Natalie telling about the catacombs with dead people in them ("the forgotten dead"), the museums in general, and very last the visit to Pompey where the archaeologist digging up and dusting a couple dead in the eruption of the volcano - these all add up into a quite clear, yet not so obvious as to be irritating, message. In the end, this time in the middle of a communion (?) parade, after several discussions and a decision to get divorced, the couple decides to go on, after all they do love each other (and may I remark here, why on earth is the film's Spanish title, "Te querré siempre" = I will always love you, such a spoiler? - This often happens when titles are translated...) and they only have this one life to live.

There are many other successes to Viaggio in Italia, such as for example showing subtle notions on people's feelings and attitudes (Catherine notices Alexander flirting with another woman in a restaurant while a band plays a cheerful tune; Catherine and Alexander talk on the balcony while sunbathing; Catherine waiting for Alexander and feigning to have fallen asleep...); these moments someone might call "realistic" but I am far too careful to do so.

All in all, Viaggio in Italia is a great film for a film aficionado/a to watch with their mother (it she's anything like mine), the both will love it, but maybe not for all the same reasons ;).

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11 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
The most subtle of romances played against a breathtaking backdrop of ancient history., 26 March 2003
Author: TheVid from Colorado Springs

A masterwork. Heeding Martin Scorsese's advice during his documentary MY VOYAGE TO ITALY, I was finally able to see an English language version of this film on a Brazilian DVD release and the experience was an exhilarating one. The story of a couple on the verge of destruction, surrounded by the vestiges of Pompeii and a view of Vesuvius, is at once real and mesmerizing, and the captivating moment of truth presented in the finale is a stirring revelation. It's easy to see how this film pointed the way for the studied new wave romances to come, like Michelangelo Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA, Godard's CONTEMPT and even Stanley Donen's TWO FOR THE ROAD.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Fascinating Journey To Haunting Emotions and Desirable Reconciliations, 7 August 2011

Author: Marcin Kukuczka from Cieszyn, Poland

At the Cahiers Du Cinéma, Francois Truffaut, a great representative of the New Wave in France, proclaimed Roberto Rossellini's production "the first modern film." What he meant by "modern" at that time is, perhaps, of little relevance nowadays: the film is black and white; the film's producers and cast represent the classic symbols of the past period. Moreover, it seems that we can afford more spectacular journeys to Italy than the one introduced here. The miraculous Sorrento Coast has been photographed and filmed in many far more impressive technologies. Nevertheless, Truffaut's viewpoint occurs to be relevant to many modern fans of this old yet 'modern' film.

To understand that, we have to underline something significant in that respect: although VIAGGIO IN ITALIA does not belong to the Neorealist films of the time, it appears to inspire and manifest the seemingly best period for Italian cinema that Neorealist movement was. The film art meant to address simple people with what they really experience in life. Therefore, the theme that is being developed in VIAGGIO IN ITALIA is so down to earth. We can still feel similar empathy with the characters that the 1954 viewers felt. Empathy with whom?

Two people appear to be in the lead, a married couple played by great cinema stars of the time: Ingrid Bergman (Rossellini's wife) and George Sanders. Although Ingrid Bergman was cast by Roberto Rossellini in more of his "Italian series" (e.g. STROMBOLI LA TERRA DI DIO), she is exceptional here. We get to see the couple in media res on their road (mind you the deliberate image of the road at the beginning) and gradually get to know them authentically through what they say and through what they do. Catherine (Ms Bergman) and Alex (Mr Sanders) experience the crisis of their marriage...although they are a couple, two people who should naturally love each other, they are as if strangers and feel like ones; although they are meant to be similar, they differ considerably. And there is one little step towards making this film an anti-marriage conclusion. Yet, Rossellini chooses something more demanding by listening to Italy's stones of history which seem to speak to us now. A woman and a man...having the same destination, will their ways face bitter separation?

Ingrid Bergman convincingly portrays a woman of sophisticated tastes, of intellect and feelings. Her character is the one to be liked and empathized with, particularly at the scene when she talks of her former love, a poet Charles. He is dead...yet, he seems to be alive in her, she follows his traces, she experiences the haunting whispers of the past. It is memorably executed in the overwhelming scene when she visits the museum of Naples. What a shot! We see Ingrid, a great beauty, walking among the grandiose sculptures, among the men of 2,000 years ago, people of the past who appear to be so much like the people of today. I think that this conclusion of hers which she shares with Alex is, as if, the quintessential message of the film. Although times change, people's desires and certain values are universal and timeless. We can say that Catherine is constantly haunted by her own past and by the past strictly linked to the places she visits...the echo of voices, the coldness of the catacombs, the might and power of the volcanoes, the chaos of the streets of Naples and the excavations at Pompeii. She dreams of a good life, an independent life, easy going life (the maxim 'how sweet it is to do nothing' makes some sense, at least an amusing sense for her); yet, the moments she sees mothers with babies in the streets fill her with unique nostalgia.

Alex is different....he does not find Italy very charming because of his practical, cold, unemotional view on life. He is a hypocrite-like master who has never seen 'noise and boredom go so well together.' He is bored and boring himself. He leaves because he has nothing to do...he has nothing to say and the stories about a dreamer, a poet make him both jealous and sarcastic. Yet, the experience with a chick he dates in idyllic Capri opens his eyes a bit and he changes within. He is strict and hilarious, particularly at the moment he searches for a glass of mineral water.... Work and duty that mean so much for him not necessarily mean much to Catherine...yet, does it mean that they have to be apart? His dominant role of a man is excellently directed towards the background and his egocentric desires are well crafted and manipulated both in the performance and the direction. Rossellini highlights Catherine more as the woman who goes through inner trouble but enlightens a lot within her inner self and in others. I wish the ending were more developed and not so condensed in the climactic idea of the movie...But the camera-work in the finale really escapes from the Hollywood cliché and it does deliberately and successfully so.

What does VIAGGIO IN ITALIA offer us? Good sense of humor with a bit of sentimentality, lovely views of Italian miracles, great performances of two celebrities among simple people, and the combination of the past and the present. It would be a lovely discovery to say that this film may be liked both by Americans and Europeans....because it is no chronology, no storyline, just a terrific combination of the past that haunts us and educates us, the present that follows us and influences us and the future that is the mother of the two and the mother of none alike. An old film with an ever 'modern' content.

The first shot of the film is the very first impression that highlights their way(s) which appear(s) to lead us to a certain moment...the final shot of the film is the last conclusion that focuses on people walking the paths of history with their own desires, with their own decisions.

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Loss and Love in Naples, 2 May 2012
Author: David Le Sage from Australia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Rossellini's "Journey in Italy" is a masterful film about a couple falling out of, and back into, love. Normally not subject matter that this reviewer would find particularly interesting, the film is nonetheless captivating due to the director's mastery and the excellent, if ever-so-slightly stilted, performances of his two leads.

A love and death motif permeates the film. The protagonists travel to Italy after the death of a relative and the destruction of Pompeii is a recurring motif. It is only after nearly losing each other, albeit temporarily, in a sudden maelstrom of humanity, do they realise how much they need each other and how much protection against the world each can offer the other.

Bergman's character is cultured and interested in the world whilst her husband has become bored and jaded by it. Each has drifted apart and a divorce seems inevitable until they are confronted by a sudden, though very temporary, risk of loss. The beautiful "miracle" at the end is actually the small, private miracle of them finding each other when hope seems gone. The risk of a real physical separation shows to them that perhaps they had not drifted as far apart as they had suspected. The shock of the moment is what tears down the facades to reveal the core of the marriage.

The film is shot in a naturalistic way and was certainly influenced by the neo-realist movement. Naples and Pompeii are themselves characters in the film and the realism adds a naturalness that conveys to the audience an illusion that they are looking at a real, average marriage and not artifice.

The pacing is good and, despite little happening on the surface, the film never ceases to engage the audience. Most of the visual stimuli comes from the beautifully-filmed scenes of Naples, particularly the statues and the geysers.

The statues themselves reflect the transience of life; like in Ozymandias, where are these people now? They and those they loved are gone. Likewise, the steam from the geysers amuses for a while but it is ephemeral. Pompeii is a moment captured in time but it is a moment of sudden loss like that which shakes the couple out of their apathy.

Ultimately, this is a wonderful film by a mature film-making who is both subtle and thoughtful at his craft. The motifs are there but they are not heavy-handed and for a film-maker to create a film that remains constantly interesting for its entire running time when, on the surface, little is happening is an indication of a craftsman who has mastered his art.

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1 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Searching for love in a marriage., 5 November 2010

Author: Boba_Fett1138 from Groningen, The Netherlands

This movie is being an example of some simplistic but beautiful and effective film-making. It doesn't follow a big story in which a big conflict suddenly arises or something needs to get solved or found but it's simply a movie about a, somewhat elderly British(?) couple, on holiday in Italy, who suddenly start to realize that they have never really loved each other.

It's a movie that works because of how well done and beautifully it all got done. It obviously helps that the movie is being set in Italy and features some of the famous landmarks, in and around Napels. The movie focus a lot on the culture and history, since the movie is seen through the eyes of our two main characters, that are tourists and new to the country. There is always something happening in the movie, even though it really doesn't follow a that complicated or thick storyline. It's a movie that prefers realism and is basically a random slice of life and about marriage, that of course is not always anything romantic or love filled. Suddenly they start to learn more about each other and about themselves, which makes them realize that they are perhaps not meant to be together. Doesn't sound that interesting perhaps but the way the story gets told simply makes this a great one to watch, that also never bores. Granted that it's also a quite short movie.

The movie also works well because the characters in it are being realistic and they interacting convincingly with each other. Both George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman gave some fine performances in this movie and were a convincing screen couple, who's marriage has worn out.

It's also a movie that benefits from the fact that it got done in black & white. For some reason I think this movie would had been way more cheesy had it been shot in full color. Instead now the movie has some real class and beauty to it as well.

Despite that it's a movie set in Italy and also an Italian produced movie, with an Italian title, it's still an mostly English spoken film. At least the two main characters speak Italian throughout. So those who normally won't come near a 'foreign' film can also easily watch this one, if you pick up the right, original, version of it of course.

Simply one fine little, well done, effective movie, by Italian director Roberto Rossellini.

8/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

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1 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
See Naples and live, 30 July 2010
Author: Amnes from Australia

Seems long and drawn out until you get to the final moment which is a marvellous thing, then you realise how great a film it was, in hindsight.

Possibly influenced Bunuel - some of the tree lined avenues and the religious saturation of a culture, the slowness of the story, it all reminded me of Bunuel. It's also acknowledged to be an influence on Godard's Contempt and it was interesting to see how it inspired parts of that film - the estranged couple cast against stunning Italian Neapolitan scenery. Must be a great story for it to have been filmed so well twice.

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