Journey to Italy (Rossellini, 1954):
BFI Southbank, NFT3, 3pm
This
is my personal highlight of the Festival, a masterpiece by celebrated
Italian director Roberto Rossellini in a magnificent restoration.
56th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (10-21 October 2012) DAY 5
Every
day (from October 10 to October 21) I will be selecting the London
Film Festival choices you have a chance to get tickets for and the
movies you are unlikely to see in
London very soon unless you go to see them at the Festival. Here
is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't
worry if some of the recommended films are sold out by the time you read this as there are always
some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each
screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.
Chicago Reader review:
'Roberto Rossellini's finest fiction film and
unmistakably one of the great achievements of the art. Ingrid Bergman
and George Sanders play a long-married British couple grown restless and
uncommunicative. On a trip to Italy to dispose of a piece of property,
they find their boredom thrown into relief by the Mediterranean
landscape—its vitality (Naples) and its desolation (Pompeii). But
suddenly, in one of the moments that only Rossellini can film, something
lights inside them, and their love is renewed as a bond of the spirit. A
crucial work, truthful and mysterious.'
Dave Kehr
Time Out review:'Some films have to be seen to be believed: the
secret of this most beautiful and magical of films is 'nothing
happens'. From the slight tale of a bored English couple holidaying in
Italy, Rossellini builds a magnificently passionate story of cruelty and
cynicism swirling into a renewal of love: life is so short, we must
make the most of it... Rarely has screen chemistry worked so indefinably
well; Sanders' suave, caddish businessman superbly complements
Bergman's Garbo-like presence and the sensuous locations in which they
feel so ill at ease. And though critics may have always praised it as
'one of the most beautiful films ever made', its genuinely romantic
tenderness (it ends in 'I love you') mark it as never so unfashionable,
never so moving.'
Don McPherson
Here is an extract.
The film is accompanied by the 2012 Italian documentary Bergman & Magnani: The War of Volcanoes
London Film Festival review:'A scintillating documentary: a delightfully gossipy combination of film
history and romantic soap. Consisting of glorious film clips, black
& white and colour archive footage and newsreel, War of the
Volcanoes plots the 50s scandal surrounding legendary Italian director
Rossellini’s dumping of his star and lover, Anna Magnani, in favour of a
new creative and emotional affair with Swedish-Hollywood icon Ingrid
Bergman. The result was tabloid headlines galore, and – stoking them –
two rival films in production at the same time on near-adjacent Aeolian
islands: Volcano, starring Magnani, and Rossellini’s own Stromboli,
featuring, of course, his new muse Bergman. A revealing treat.' Adrian Wootton
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