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.

An unhappily married wealthy couple drive to Naples to dispose of a deceased uncle's villa. He is dry as an old bone, completely unfeeling around his wife, while she grows more and more upset as time passes at their lack of connection and romance. Eventually they decide to get a divorce, before the final scene where they abruptly change their mind and declare their love for one another, without any indication as to how they reached such a conclusion. The film does a pretty good job of avoiding melodrama until that point, but a more insipid ending you couldn't imagine.The lack of any human warmth in this film makes it an emotionless affair, though it does manage an inviting mood thanks to the wonderfully scenery. Set mostly in sunshine, mountains rise in the background, oceans sit on the horizon, stony streets are woven, and we get a travelogue of the southwest coast of Italy - Naples, Capri, Pompeii - volcanic smoke, catacombs, and marbled statues. Rossellini does well to pull back from the actors and let these locations breathe fresh life into a relationship of stale air. Learning foreign history and observing foreign life pass around them, the mood is that of disconnect - though there is a sense of wonder and searching for our place within it all. Certain nods to the macabre along the way impart some vague thematic elements, though I empathise with any who thought this was made by a tourism promotion company.

I recommend "No longer bodies, but pure ascetic images", chaos-rampant from Greece, 6 August 2011).I missed the first twenty minutes of "Journey to Italy." Usually when this happens I come back to the theater another time. However, with this particular slice-of-life study of marriage, I feel comfortable discussing it.Robert Rosselini deserves a lot of credit for making it work. Without much happening, we have to like what we are seeing and Rosselini is up to the task. We notice details; e.g., the faces of the two principals, children viewed through the window of a moving car, etc. The framing is well done. Rosselini has the right size of image on display at all times.Ingrid Bergman's Catherine is of course, impeccable. Bergman's combination of strength and vulnerability really makes her characters come to life. Her Catherine is just another argument she is the greatest screen actress so far.George Sanders' Alexander is written to be emotionally distant and often confusing. Sanders is convincing. However, since he always comes off as sinister (e.g., as the blackmailer in 'Rebecca'), it seems a stretch that he would be so sexless, particularly with the despairing prostitute he picks up.'Journey To Italy' is well done, and offers very interesting cultural and historical knowledge about the Naples + Pompeii region. However, I am not anxious to catch it again. It is curious how Francois Truffaut offered up so much praise for it. I'd sooner watch most of Truffaut's catalog than this again. Also, there are dozens of films made at the same time that are simply more appealing for repeated viewing.'Journey to Italy' describes love and marriage as filled with trials. Curiously, Rosselini gives love a chance to succeed while repeatedly informing us that the residents of Pompeii had no chance when their volcano unexpectedly erupted.

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.