Until the End of the World (1991)

I envy the folks who managed to watch the shorter three hour version of this movie. I happened to come across a download version of the film in three parts, each with it's own set of opening credits that amounted to nearly five hours of the director's cut. Quite honestly, the most interesting thing that happened in the movie for me was that horrific car crash to open the picture when one of the bank robbers threw that beer bottle out the window of his car. After that, it was a looong, slow descent down an extended slope, notwithstanding the global odyssey that took place involving the principal characters. That whole business about the runaway nuclear satellite from India barely managed to impact my attention span. More than anything, when it came to the sci-fi aspects of this picture, I was reminded of the original mid-Sixties 'Star Trek' series in which Gene Roddenberry's futuristic vision came up with things like flip phones and Uhura's mini-skirts, things that translated into reality only a short time later. For this picture released in 1991, director Wim Wenders made a dramatic leap of faith to envision a world eight years into the future that included such things as viewing kiosks, facial recognition and locator technology, and glass front refrigerators, which when I think of the latter, who really wants to see wilting celery stalks and dripping milk cartons even before opening the door? I have to admit, some of the hand held telephone devices looked kind of interesting, except for the fact that they all looked a lot like art-deco artifacts from the Fifties. I don't know, maybe I'm missing something here compared to all the folks who praise the film for it's poetic vision, but for all of the lovely cinematography and stellar cast, for me this was as dry as the Australian Outback, which you could probably cross a lot sooner than the amount of time it takes to watch this picture.

Set in 1999, a woman (Solveig Dommartin) has a car accident with some bank robbers, who enlist her help to take the bank money to a drop in Paris. On the way she runs into another fugitive from the law (William Hurt), an American who is being chased by the CIA.Wenders realized the film would be too long for the commercial distribution, so he kept control of the unedited film rather than surrendering it to distributors. After the film's theatrical release, Wenders worked with multiple copies and, with Sam Neill, recording additional narration, completed a 280-minute version. The longer cut, which Wenders regards as the definitive version of the film, unfolds as a trilogy and is presented in three parts (the titles appear three different times).The version I saw was around 150 minutes. If it were any longer, it would definitely need to be broken up into parts. It is a bit confusing, and definitely strange. This is science fiction, but not your typical kind. Really more off the wall, artistically sci-fi, like "Alphaville".

I guess the question you have to ask yourself if considering taking on this film is, Do I want to spend almost 5 hours of my life on this? The conception of the film is ambitious and brilliant, it covers a huge amount of ground. It's visually stunning, and the choice of music and its melding with scenes and moods is inspired - especially Ray Davies' 'Thank You for the Days' whenever it appears. But does the film actually work? Unfortunately not. And the main reason for this, for a native English speaker, is that we have non-native speakers of English being directed by a non-native speaker of English. Although novelist Peter Carey had a hand in the writing, he obviously didn't help Wenders with the directing. So many of the lines are badly delivered, and much of the acting is wooden. Even actors of the stature of Jeanne Moreau and Max von Sydow can't deliver lines in English without good direction. Maybe it all sounded good to Wim, but sorry Wim, it doesn't work for Anglophones. Even William Hurt's and Sam Neill's lines often fall flat. If you speak German, try the German version - it sounded better to me. Otherwise, why not spend the time watching 'Wings of Desire' TWICE, or watch three of Wenders' great early films? They are much more rewarding.

I just finished watching the 4 hour and 36 minute version of this movie and want to say that it is incredible! I've watched the American (Reader's Digest) version of it before and always had trouble making sense of it. Well, watching the longer version of it makes so much more sense.The idea that the flesh becomes the healing word on paper that saves us from our narcissistic dreams is fascinating concept.I compare this movie to Leoni's "Once Upon a Time in America". Only when the Director has control of the editing, does really become an awesome piece of art.The music is phenomenal! The story is mind-blowing. Very European pacing. I highly recommend it to all! www.harpo.ca