Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders play Katherine and Alex Joyce, a childless English married couple on a trip to Italy whose marriage is on the point of collapse until they are miraculously reconciled.

Journey to Italy is considered by many to be Rossellini's masterpiece,[2][3][4] as well as a seminal work of modernist cinema due to its loose storytelling.

Within days of their arrival, the couple's relationship becomes strained amid mutual misunderstandings, buried anger that rises to the surface and a degree of jealousy on both sides.

On another day, she accompanies Natalie Burton to the Fontanelle cemetery, with its stacks of unidentified disinterred human skulls that are adopted and honored by local people.

The film concludes with a crane shot showing the couple embracing passionately amid the continuing religious procession.

The film originally was intended as an adaptation of the French writer Colette's novel Duo; Rossellini was, however, unable to get the rights to the novel and so was forced to draft a screenplay that differed sufficiently from the novel.

[1] Rossellini and his co-author, Vitaliano Brancati, also apparently drew on a script entitled New Vine, by Antonio Pietrangeli, which described the argumentative relationship of an English couple touring Naples in a Jaguar automobile.

[1] George Sanders' autobiography Memoirs of a Professional Cad (1960) tellingly describes Rossellini's methods of direction and their effects on the actors and production team.

A film convulsed by themes of sterility, petrification, pregnancy and eternity, it finds its echo in such death-haunted Nouvelle Vague masterpieces as Chabrol's Le Boucher and Truffaut's La Chambre Verte.

Critic Geoff Andrew referred to it as "a key stepping stone on the path to modern cinema" in its shift away from neorealism,[18] and A.O.

Scott notes Rossellini's "way of dissolving narrative into atmosphere, of locating drama in the unspoken inner lives of his characters";[19] because Alex and Katherine are not developed through a conventional plot but instead spend lengthy amounts of time in boredom and dejection, the film frequently is cited as a major influence on the dramas of Michelangelo Antonioni and later works about modern malaise.

[22] On Metacritic, based on an average of 4 reviews from critics, the film received a perfect score of 100, meaning "universal acclaim.

[25] This version is based on restoration work at Cineteca di Bologna and Cinecittà Luce [it], which was reviewed very favorably by Glenn Erickson.