Roberto Rossellini's Stromboli had been sitting in my Criterion Channel queue for way too long, and last night I finally got around to watching it. For some reason I often have an initial negative reaction to Rossellini films, although I don't know why. I remember starting his Rome, Open City (1945) and stopping, before starting up again weeks later, and absolutely loving it. It's like I didn't think it would be interesting after fifteen minutes or so, and then paused it - not deciding not to watch it - but rather thinking of something else I had to do that seemed more pressing/interesting at that moment. Inexplicably, I think I did exactly the same thing with Stromboli. This is by way of pointing out that I truly am a moron. I also liked Stromboli quite a bit. It tells the story of Karin (Ingrid Bergman), who is a Lithuanian who somehow ends up in an internment camp in the chaos of the end of the war, and who ends up marrying Antonio (Mario Vitale) to start to new life on the island of Stromboli. Antonio is not a bad guy, necessarily, but this is clearly not the life that she wanted. It's weird to think that in Trapani we'll be able to catch a ferry to Stromboli, which is doubtless how I'll end up dying in a volcanic eruption (my friends will only smile, sadly, and say, "You know, it's OK, I think he would have wanted it that way."). The initial response in the American press to the film was horrifically terrible, which was a stupid, puritanical American response to Bergman's affair with Rosselini. Now there are folks who consider it one of the great films ever made. I'm going to come down in the middle on that one. I liked it quite a bit, and would definitely recommend it, but I just don't think I would agree that it's one of the greatest couple hundred films ever made. Still, it's very good, and check it out.
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