Voyage to Italy
Director: Roberto Rossellini
Year Released: 1954
Rating: 3.5
I've always relished the Hemingway quote, "Never go on trips with anyone you do not love" and tried to follow it (travel and 24-hour exposure to other people in foreign lands tends to bring out the worst everyone). Here, in one of Rossellini's most important works, bitter couple George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman go to Italy in the hopes of reconciling but only argue and drift apart before finding some kind of redemption at the very conclusion - I suppose Rossellini's forced to end the movie on a positive note even when every piece of evidence suggests neither Sanders nor Bergman are ready to love again (or maybe their final embrace is a sign of desperation: at this point in their lives, all they have is each other). Rossellini's Italy - in this film - isn't exactly a romantic wonderland, and there are several moments of miscommunication and misery.
