Most people do not seem to like the second part all that much. It is filmed in a style that is not looking like your usual De Sica film. It's cool, distant, drained of colour (especially compared to the warm colours in part 1), the people are cold, self-occupied, not connecting... I wonder if De Sica was intending this to be an hommage to Antonioni?
shareI got the same feeling when I watched it as well. It also reminded me a little like a French New Wave film, mainly with the jump cuts showing different streets while narration played over it. It is as if in this segment De Sica was trying to get modern. It feels very different from the rest of the film. I didn't care for the other two episodes, but the Anna one was my favorite.
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The Anna segment was my favourite also. The cinematography is more Antonioni-like than the French 'La Nouvelle Vague'. The whole atmosphere was very distant and indefferent sort of like L'avventura or L'eclisse. If Loren's character would've been less clichéd and more complexed then the whole would've been perfect.
shareThe second segment reminded me heavily of Antonioni's Cronaca di un amore - that movie also takes place in Milan and deals with a rich wife who secretly meets with her old lover. An expensive car is also an important plot device, just like it is in Ieri, oggi, domani.
shareGreat observations, I was thinking the same thing about Antonioni's influence, especially 'La Notte' since Mastroianni starred in that one. And the French New Wave as well.
The way the beginning of the sequence was shot, from behind the heads of the passengers, also reminded me a bit of Fellini's 8-1/2, though obviously without the surrealist elements.
For all the reasons others have mentioned, the second part of 'Ieri, oggi, domani' was my favorite as well.