Roberto Rossellini's Journey to Italy helped change the direction of Italian cinema in the 1950s by disregarding the tenets of neorealism (a genre which Rossellini himself helped create) in favor of a new breed of melodrama that would eventually inspire filmmakers like Michelangelo Antonioni. While I am generally not a fan of such consciously self-reflexive cinema, Journey to Italy, a film charting the deterioration and restoration of a strained marriage between two English tourists in Italy, Alex and Katherine Joyce (George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman), remains a bold artistic statement. While Katherine seeks inspiration and solace in the environs of Naples and Pompeii, Alex goes searching for it in a not-quite-love-affair with another woman. But just when their relationship seems like it will permanently implode, a miracle happens on the streets of Naples. Much has been written about Journey to Italy's influence on modern cinema by thinkers and scholars much more intelligent and adept than myself. All I can provide is my personal experience with the film. And in watching Journey to Italy, I found it to be warm and emotional, wise and honest.
7/10
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