Viaggio in italia or as translated into english Journey to Italy. Is a film that made a significant change in the movie industry and one that did disappoint when it came to the box office revenue. All though some did quite enjoy the film including the cast did at the time and now movie critics have come to see that the film was ahead of its time, It wasn’t perfect but it did create a path of sorts in today’s movie industry.   

Director Martin Scorsese puts it very simply, Robert Rossellini liked to experiment with his films not just for the sake of experimentation but to experiment in terms of going out further from the comfort zone most directors have. Rossellini could’ve done a similar story to his other two movies had ( Stromboli , Europe 51). However that wasn’t the case with Rossellini he ventured out even if the films were a failure in terms of revenue despite critics at the  giving it a good review such as Geoff Andrew  ” One of the cinemas most miraculous love stories” to Richard Brody from The New yorker ” The film that inspired the New French Wave ” .  Despite the good reviews from some critics the film esentaly was rejected it left a sour taste in peoples mouths saying oh its too boring , the dialogue felt flat and choppy and when watching people lost interest half way through it. What the movie focuses on is on a wealthy english couple traveling to italy to sell an estate the belongs to one of their late uncles. As the film progresses their marriage starts to fall apart. With the two becoming distant with every minute they spend in Italy and Alex ( George Sanders ) has been picking up interest in other women other than his wife. The two have a fight and Alex goes away for a few days now when he comes back and enters the room where and Katherine is “sleeping” and says “It was a long hot day and after so much sun I fell asleep’’. That was the dialogue that I previously stated choppy since that’s not how a normal conversation or even the start of one would go in that scenario those two were placed in.         

The film as stated before isn’t so much conventional but it’s really experimental. Rossellini really wanted to play around with different approaches when it comes to his films. When I say play around I mean in terms of changing up the story, way of it being filmed and dialogue. Sure in Journey to Italy the dialogue was choppy and at times not the most nature when it came to moving the storyline along but it was experimented with. The way the movie was filmed was just in a simple black and white in the 3rd perspective with no narration with it at any point in the film. So nothing groundbreaking when it came to technology. The editing wasn’t too bad when transitioning scenes it felt smooth and some of the soundtracks in the film were good and a nice touch to kinda get the scene in the right mood and what the viewer should expect for that part of the scene.  Digressing here for a bit, I found it was interesting to see how movies have evolved over time and one way to really compare is by just watching the trailers. 

The film had some good reviews but for the most part it wasn’t all good the movie was ahead of its time and the cast did have some internal conflicts which made it less pleasurable to film. Alex the main actor or George Sanders wasn’t  particularly too happy with it bring it back to the tone in the dialogue Sanders did have some moments where you can see and hear the boredom in some sense. All in all too bad this film was really appreciated at the time since they didn’t see how it made some changes in the film industry.