Eye For Film >> Movies >> Journey To Italy (1953) DVD Review
The sound quality is excellent. I spent some of the film with my eyes closed to listen more closely and it cannot be faulted.
The use of Roberto Rossellini's brother Renzo's music at key moments in the film is particularly telling. It is used, almost like a thematic link between the past and present, until it becomes synonymous with the past and with Naples itself.
The photography by Enzo Serafin is spectacular, revealing as it does so much of the beauty of the city and its surroundings, with sweeping panoramas, and yet, at the same time, conveying the minutiae of a minor domestic drama.
The commentary by Laura Mulvey is erudite, succinct and informative. She awakens us to the multiple layers of meaning in the film and the consummate skill with which it is told, whilst at the same time touching upon the problems inherent in its making.
Reviewed on: 10 May 2004