Viaggio in Italia

I was flabbergasted to see this movie has a user rating of 7.3. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein speaking of Oakland California, "there's no there there." OK, this couple has an unhappy marriage. That we get, but the film does little to show us the fundamentals of their issues. George Sanders was a fine actor, but in this flick he is lifeless, which is no surprise considering the lines he has to read. Ingrid Bergman does what she can to enliven a dead script. There is a lot of beautiful cinematography of the Neapolitan countryside, but far too many street scenes taken from a moving car. One waits and waits and waits for something to happen, but it never does. The resolution, in the street festival at the end is utterly, entirely unconvincing. This movie is a complete bore, Rosselini or no Rosselini.

This is Interminable and bogged. It's a typical story of a marriage, after eight years, is headed for the lawyers. Maybe the marriage would have lasted if they had children..maybe not. Maybe it would have lasted if she had'nt married a cad in the first place....probably. In any event, the ending is corny and in-between are some nice sights of Napoli and surroundings, but without those beatiful distractions, this would have been just another dreary melodrama. Sorry.

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.