Budapest Classic Film Marathon 2025: Journey to Italy

One of Rossellini’s most complex films is about the marital crises of a well-to-do British couple. On a trip to Naples they are faced with all the past that as modern Europeans they do not want to acknowledge: the museum’s vast ancient Roman statues, the ruins of Pompeii, the southern Italian lifestyle (countless children, constant hubbub) and a different approach to death, respect for the dead and the catacombs. The crowd gathering for the religious procession and promise of a miracle brings the couple closer, indeed its surrounds and envelopes them, like the embracing couple frozen in lava at Pompeii. But is this a happy end?