World War II displaced many, as wars do. For a time, Europe became a continent of wanderers and exiles, some of whom had lost everything except their own lives. Wherever they ended up, they often weren’t wanted and the feeling was mutual. It’s for that reason that you can’t hate Ingrid Bergman here as a Lithuanian widow in war-torn Italy who does whatever she can, including marrying some schmoe she barely knows, for a chance to escape. His home on the remote island of Stromboli sounds nice. Turns out the place is more shabby than she thought, she’s completely out-of-step with the culture and, oh yeah, there’s a volcano there that likes to go off sometimes and destroy everyone’s homes. Its inhabitants are stalwarts, elderly people who’ve learned to live with lava. Ingrid Bergman has nothing in common with them. And that’s what this stark and powerful film is partly about. Director Roberto Rossellini shoots this in his raw Neorealism style, with documentary-like views of island life. He has no time for anything sweet or much catharsis. Bergman’s face is the only pretty thing here. This is not a political film. Rossellini doesn’t argue with the war. The war already happened and its aftermath is simply something to be dealt with. The human story is the meat of the matter. It’s that lost state, where one doesn’t know where they belong except that it’s somewhere else. Also, when you’re sad and angry, you’re often not at your best. There are lots of ways to get to that state. Being a war refugee is only one of them, but in Italy 1950 it was the most relevant one.