MusicChat It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

cinemajesty Smoke waves run over the opening credits. Karen, performed by Ingrid Berman is standing alone under war refugees in the barracks for females. She talks to a man through barbwire in bomb-out backyard. The man wants to kiss through the barbwire and gets cut in it. This is how "Strombolli" produced by Roberto Rossellini in 1949, opens its curtain towards a journey of a woman, who does not belong and finds a life, dancing on a volcano with the certainty of eventually eruption.Of course, Karen marries the infantile man Antonio. They set off by boat to the volcano island. When the couple arrives at the Island's shack, Karen realizes how much work needs to be done to create a kind of living. She lets herself be overwhelmed by despair of being imprisoned in a rotten cage. Direcor Roberto Rossellini masterfully build the following scene with his female protagonist encountering a boy playing in urban ruins.Karen's journey in a society microcosm of the isle follows more in encounters with a craftsman, a priest and the native women before her husband, starts working a fisherman to bring some money to the table, which is going to be in Karen's world never enough. She is different and apart, having no humility for herself. Karen seduces the priest eventually to love her. She fails, like a woman in metropolitan city looking for a shake-up as adventure in an isolated world.In a 2017 context, the film feels remarkably like an art-house version of the historical occasion of "Pompeji (79 A.D.)", which wants me to research on the Hollywood version from 2014.Nevertheless Roberto Rossellini keeps its character of Karen focused with witnessing a magnificent scene captured in 35mm live-action format of catching Tuna-Fish in an Italian cove, followed by Karen's pregnancy announcement, the volcano erupts. The evacuation of the Island begins. Karen holds a sleeping girl on her lap in a skiff under tight environmental conditions. She misses her chance to break away from Antonio, getting pulled back onto the island.The screenplay tightens its noose for Karen, who prostitutes herself to earn some money and organize her escape poorly with a route over the volcano. She loses all her luggage before Karen runs for complete exhaustion. With her whole body down in the black rock dust, she turns to prayer."Stromboli" is a picture of great simplicity in every sense. The director organized script-writing session to make it a razor-sharp script. It feels lean as a cheetah patiently crouching for its prey before the chase. The emotional journey for the spectator starts when the film is over. I'm writing this two weeks after my initial viewing. The emotional landscape sticks with the spectator. The majority of nowadays directors lack this kind of vision. Roberto Rossellini had the empathy and understanding of a universal human need and took to transcend over the medium film.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend

JohnHowardReid I gave this one a hats-off review on its first release, but I am not so fond of it now that I have Connoisseur's DVD. A slow-moving and obvious plot unwinds to an abrupt conclusion. Little attempt is made to interest us in any of the characters except our heroine. The men are boring boors who go through their motions like trained fleas and speak in platitudes. We certainly don't blame our heroine for wanting to escape from Stromboli. We're with her all the way! The men are a cruel, ignorant, self-indulgent lot who seem to relish the hardships they impose on both their fellow-islanders and themselves. The women simply put up and shut up. No doubt people did live this way on Stromboli in 1949. Maybe they still do. But 107 minutes is far too long to spend in their company.

bluerider521 When this first came to the USA, it had already garnered quite a bit of publicity because of Bergman's liaison with Rosellini. But the initial reviews were very bad. Those reviews were correct.Seen today, the movie is a mush-mash. The voice of performers change in mid sentence. Continuity is amateurish. Bergman, the lead character seems to change her personality from scene to scene. Using real people as secondary characters may have seemed like a good gimmick when they were speaking a language not understandable to the audience, but when you hear them fumble with English and hear the risible dubbing, it is a major distraction,.

JLRMovieReviews I had heard mixed reviews of this and, being a die-hard Ingrid Bergman fan for years, I wanted to see everything of hers I could get my hands on. Directed by husband Roberto Rossellini, this film has Ingrid Bergman getting married to an Italian, of whom at first she turned down, but at last relented, when authorities questioned her as to how she came into Italy. During the German occupation of Yugoslavia, her husband was killed in the war and she made her way there somehow, but now she must leave. So she's off to the Italian's home island of Stromboli, which is the locale of an active volcano. Immediately, she is restless and very unhappy, despite the fact her husband is very nice looking and some women would give anything to be on an island with him. But that they might say is neither here nor there. She tries finally to change her perspective and pretty up the place and make herself more pretty with makeup and have a more positive outlook on life, as she had felt stifled and depressed on this small, lifeless remote island. But the local married women look down on women who wear cake on their faces, and call her immodest to her face. She keeps asking what she's done that is really wrong. She put away the pictures of old people that her husband had up, because they were depressing and painted a design on the walls to spice up the place, but when she is seen talking and smiling with another man by the locals and talk ensues, her husband slaps her around and says enough is enough. The place goes back the way it was. The ultimate denouement of the film is, will she leave her husband to be free of the restrictive life she has there or will she find peace? I couldn't tell you, as the ending is ambiguous. She is last seen trying to leave by way of the volcano, but is overcome by the smoke. She prays to be saved. But what does she mean? What is implied? Some ambiguous endings work, but in this case, I didn't feel it did. Throughout the film, I was entertained by the film but aware of its flaws. I felt like it was a poor man's version of "The Old Man and the Sea," as we are shown the life of her husband and his kin's way of life as fishermen. The fishing footage was very interesting to watch despite the fact Ingrid wasn't moved by being part of his life. She really made herself miserable. It's all in how you look at it. She may have wished for more and a better place in the world. But does she really belong to him and this world now? Should she reconcile herself to this? I am the type of person that loves films that show a lot of the ocean, so that plus Ingrid Bergman made this worth watching. But that ambiguous ending was a little disappointing to me. I would have preferred one ending or the other. Or, maybe she dies? But I don't think so. All in all, I think a Bergman and/or Rossellini fan would enjoy this film, flaws and all. But Ingrid Bergman is beautiful as usual. Sit back with Ingrid by the sea in Stromboli!