journey in italy

[charliechaplinfan]

I hoping this thread will insight differing points of view. I've just watched this movie and been blown away both by Ingrid's beauty and the beauty of Italy. I have a soft spot for the area around Naples and Vesuvius where this movie was made. The story centres on the characters of Alex and Catherine Joyce, forced into taking a journey together to the house of Catherine's deceased uncle who has left her a beautiful villa. They are there to sell the villa then return to England.

You sense straight away that there is a tension between the couple, Alex played by George Sanders is bored and wants to get back to his job, Catherine wants to take the time to have a holiday together, their first since they married 8 years before. They are childless, Catherine not wanting children but now obviously regretting her decision as it becomes more and more obvious that the Joyce's just can't get along together. They try, but they seem to try at different times and can never guage when the other person is reaching out to them, they keep missing each other.

They try a seperation, Alex goes to Capri, Catherine goes on an endless round of visits to museums, she longs for him to return and when he does, they can't connect even though each is missing the other, each is wrapped up in their own thing. How often does this happen in marriages. One has a hobby the other just doesn't share? A couple has so little time together because they work so hard that they don't know how to communicate anymore?

I think Alex could have put up with the gaps in the marriage because he has his job to immerse himself in whereas I got the impression that catherine had been longing for this holiday and it was going wrong. She couldn't help but criticise him but called him for criticising her, even though he didn't criticise her as much. I thought Ingrid was disagreeable for the most part and not just with Alex yet I think the film maker (Rossellini) is trying to swing it for the audience to have the sympathy with Ingrid's Catherine. I felt equal sympathy with both.

Thankfully they are reunited in the final reel, will it last, I don't know.