Katherine (Ingrid Bergman) and Alex Joyce (George Sanders) are on vacation in Italy. It's been eight years of marriage and they feel like strangers to each other.

This is scenes from a marriage and a road trip to personal discovery. It's meandering but that's perfectly fine. It's meant to be. Director Roberto Rossellini inadvertently starts a new movement in looser story telling in films. It's jazz when music has been all classical. The only ill-fitting aspect is the glamor of Ingrid Bergman. It's not a big thing or even a bad thing. She cannot be less than the movie superstar beauty that she is. It takes me out of the movie sometimes although there is an autobiographical suggestion within these characters. It takes away from their everyday struggles within their relationship. I do wonder if an average looking couple would make this an even more compelling examination into a marriage. I also wonder if the couple should stay together throughout the movie so that they can fill out their relationship more. I want them to talk this out together from start to finish.

This film is one I found listed in the pages of the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I would probably never have been attracted to this film if it weren't for this recommendation, I hoped it would be deserved of it. Basically husband and wife Alexander 'Alex' (George Sanders) and Katherine Joyce (Ingrid Bergman) are a wealthy and sophisticated English couple who have travelled to Italy to to sell a large property they have recently inherited from a deceased uncle near Naples. Alex is a workaholic businessman, while Katherine is more sensitive, their relationship is cooled and strained by the journey to Italy, as well as Katherine remembering poignant memories of now deceased poet friend Charles Lewington, he died in the war. Katherine tours museums of Naples and Pompeii, Alex flirts with women on Capri, his sarcasm and bluntness and her critical nature cause their marriage to disintegrate within days of arrival, they agree at one point to consider divorce, but it is a religious procession in Pompeii that they are caught up and their love for each other is rekindled. Also starring Maria Mauban as Marie, Paul Muller as Paul Dupont, Anthony La Penna (Leslie Daniels) as Tony Burton and Anna Proclemer as Prostitute. To be honest, I could not concentrate fully on everything going on, because it was so chatty, only my interest in Bergman and the sights of Italy kept me engaged a little, it is perhaps to simple in narrative and plot, but if you see the journey of the title being both physical and spiritual I suppose you can get a little something out of watching this romantic drama. Worth watching, at least once, in my opinion!

I've been reading with some amusement the comments on this board.

"Journey to Italy" from 1954 stars Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders and was directed by Bergman's husband, Roberto Rossellini.

Catherine and Alex travel to Naples so they can negotiate the sale of a villa they inherited.

The marriage has broken down; the two don't seem to communicate much, and there is tension. Eventually they both state their unhappiness and decide to divorce and to spend time apart during the trip.

Catherine goes on a sightseeing tour of Naples while Alex hangs out in Capri flirting with women.

The fact is that neither one of them want to divorce, but they simply don't know what to do to make things better.

European filmmakers often don't deal in dialogue as much as they do in images and in feelings. That means watching a film and not waiting for something to happen in an action way but rather in an emotional way, or the way in which a film makes a statement. A great example of this is Antonioni's L'Eclisse.

If you watch a foreign film with the expectation of it moving quickly or that something big is going to happen, you're often bored or disappointed. On the other hand, sometimes a movie is simply boring and disappointing or pretentious. I don't think this is one of them.

Catherine and Alex come to grips with their marriage against the beauty of Naples, and what Catherine and Alex see and experience allows them to make a decision.

There is certainly still love there - Alex is jealous when he sees men paying attention to Catherine. Catherine has inner dialogue when she's driving that indicates that she has forgotten the qualities that caused her to marry Alex in the first place. Instead, she now focuses on his sarcasm and his critical nature.

When one falls out of love, one becomes apathetic. Yet he still has the power to hurt and annoy Catherine, and she can make him jealous.

She can't help but say to him, "You should rest now too" and noticing when he comes in late. Rather than admit that, she merely says I heard something and wanted to make sure it was you.

At the end of the film, they witness a miracle and experience another one.

I actually didn't think Sanders and Bergman had much in the way of chemistry but I suppose for a falling-apart marriage, that works. Ingrid Bergman gives a beautiful performance as a disappointed and sometimes angry woman who is able to come out of herself while seeing Naples.

Ingrid Bergman's radiant beauty shines throughout; she gives a lovely, gentle performance; Sanders' character for me was less fleshed out - and again, isn't that just like a man, showing little of his real emotions.

I'm sure it sounds like I'm trying to give a lecture on How to Watch a Foreign Film. I'm not - I've hated plenty of them. It just seems to me that sometimes, particularly among young people on this board, there's an emphasis on the technical aspects and a desire to be passively entertained. Doesn't work in this case.