The Voyage (1977)

The Worst Film Ever

Such a frustrating disappointment

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Vittorio de Sica's last film is a delicate realisation of one of the Nobel Prize winner Luigi Pirandello's most sensitive and deeply human stories. It's a story of love with infinite tenderness and pain and equally infinite beauty, and all this, de Siva manages to put on screen in as restrained and perfectly controlled direction as Joseph Heifetz did in his rendering of Anton Chekhov's "Lady with the Dog" in 1959. It's precisely the same delicacy here (with equally heartfelt music by Manuel de Sica) but in colour and as beautifully operatic settings as in Luchino Visconti's "Senso". To this comes above all Sophia Loren's acting and Richard Burton's, for once remarkably controlled, until the very last scene.This film has been rather brushed aside and neglected as too non-Vittorio de Sica to be taken seriously, but it's time to revise and give a faire appraisal of its qualities. Forget all his earlier films, all his black-and-white neorealism and all the war movies and take a look at this as something entirely different. This is a human story of bleeding hearts set before the first world war made a beautiful world disappear and at the pinpoint of death. It has so many qualities, and not the least one is the mere cinematography, every scene being like a beautiful Italian painting, every human detail mattering including the gossiping servants, the scenes with the boy and the heart-rendering naivety of Ian Bannen, for once in a role completely void of any meanness. You have never seen him like this in any other film.My favourite scene is when Sophia for the first time breaks her isolation after the loss of her husband, when Cesare has urged her to leave her closed-up existence and go out, while she refuses, but afterwards anyway goes up to the terrace, breathes some air and almost disappears among the laundry blowing in the wind...I was always impressed by every Vittorio de Sica film I ever saw, but I am not exaggerating when I confess that I was never more impressed by him than in this one, mainly for its absolutely convincing humanism.

Being happily caught by surprise with how much a friend had enjoyed the Richard Burton and Sophia Loren adaptation of Brief Encounter,I began to search franticly round Amazon UK,for any similar movies,in the hope of finding one that would be a suitable Christmas present.Originally expecting to find nothing but the various DVD versions of the original David Lean film,I was shocked to discover,that Burton and Loren had actually appeared in a second movie together,which led to me deciding to have another brief encounter with Loren and Burton.The plot:Attending the reading of their father's will,each member of the Braggi family is completely satisfied with everything that their dad has kindly left them.Suddenly,the solicitor mentions the now that the property and money has been dealt with,he has one final item that was left in the will (a letter),that his sons Antonio and Cesare must follow the orders of.Paying a visit to the Mauro family, (who have been friends with the Braggi's for decades) Cesare tells their daughter Adrianna De Mauro,that the last request left by his father was for Adrianna to get married to his youngest son Antonio.Initially angered over the idea of going with Antonion,due to having always had a secret attraction between herself and Cesare,Cesare quickly decides to hold his emotions,and tells Adrianna that they must put their feelings for each other aside,in order to do what is best for their families.Years later:Despite initially being extremely uncomfortable around Antonio,Adrianna soon finds herself warming to Antonio's easy charm,which leads to both of them settling down and having a child.One day deciding to take his car around some country roads,Antonio ends up driving off a cliff and dies.As Cesare and Adrianna both grieve over the death of their husband/brother,they both start to find feelings returning that they had attempted to hide into the past.View on the film:After being bitterly disappointed by the cold performances of Sophia Loren and Richard Burton in Brief Encounter,I was thrilled to discover,that director Vittorio De Sica (who sadly died shortly after making the film) was impressively able to break the cold shoulder by giving the film a warming atmosphere,with Loren (who had worked with Sica in the past) and Burton showing Adrianna and Cesare to be two social intelligent people,who relies that they have to show their attraction for each other in subtle ways,in order not to anger each others families.Although the screenplay by Diego Fabbri,Massimo Franciosa and Luisa Montagnana (based on a novel by Luigi Pirandello) does fall into some melodrama traps,such as giving a character a "movie illness" that just happens to kick in whenever a dramatic moment is needed in the film,Sica is thankfully able to cover over most of the melodramatic holes that appear in the screenplay,by shooting with stylish long distance shoots,that along with allowing the stunning locations to be fully displayed,is also used to show the audience,how despite being so close to each other,Adrianna and Cesare have to do everything they can,to keep their emotions at a far distance from each other.

De Sica came in blaring ( sciuscià,ladri di biciclette,Umberto D) but he did not go out the same way.Objections to "IL viaggio" remain:first of all,it's absurd to use English when you film a story featuring Italians in ...Italy.And Burton does not look at all like an Italian.Hints at WW1 (Sarajevo) are completely pointless -unless De Sica wants to point out that Loren's death symbolizes the death of a certain bourgeoisie,which anyway is not convincing.And however,the movie is not completely worthless, you can watch it with interest:De Sica plays the game of melodrama and follows its rules:Loren is married to Burton's brother and would not think to cheat on him a single moment.When the husband accidentally dies ,she says "My son is everything". However she loves her brother-in-law....but...-another melodrama's permanent feature- ,she becomes seriously ill ....

If you can accept Richard Burton as an Italian, if you can believe that the strappingly healthy Sophia Loren is actually delicate and dying, and if you can take a plot based on needless misunderstandings, then you should enjoy the sunny photography, elegant period decor and sincere performances here. It's soft-centered, but Vittorio De Sica manages to work up a genuine romantic glow.