When I was 13 or 14, maybe, my mother took me and my sister to Orlando, Florida. My brother was graduating from Naval bootcamp, and we decided to make a vacation of it. We visited SeaWorld and Universal Studios and a few other touristy places (though oddly enough we did not go to Disney World). It was the first time I’d ever taken a vacation like that. It was amazing. 

The thing about amusement parks is that you wind up waiting in line for most of your time there. I know Disney and probably the other parks have ways around the long lines now, but back then you just waited.  The lines wrapped back and forth around each other, so you wound up zigzagging between different groups of people. As the lines took over an hour to get you to your destination, you could get to where you felt you knew the people you kept crossing around.

You’d cross paths with the same people over and over again. You’d smile at them and make small talk. You’d complain about the long line. Sometimes you’d run into those same people at other rides. It was the first time in my life that I’d realized the world was filled with so many people. People with their own lives. Their own hopes and dreams. These were people I’d never see again in my life, but their lives would continue.  It was a strange enlightenment.

Indiscretion of an American Wife is a bit like that. Or that’s what it was originally meant to be. Director Vittorio De Sica imagined a movie about the various lives that briefly crossed paths at a train station. American producers mucked that concept up a great deal, instead making it concentrate on one love story, but you can find bits of the original concept in there if you look. 

Anyway, that’s a long introduction to my review of the Blu-ray of that film. You can read even more thoughts over at Cinema Sentries.