From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Mar 2 20:34:07 1992 Xref: herkules.sssab.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:544 rec.arts.sf.reviews:51 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!psinntp!psinntp!rpi!uwm.edu!linac!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: riddle@is.rice.edu (Prentiss Riddle) Subject: REVIEW: UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD Reply-To: riddle@is.rice.edu (Prentiss Riddle) Organization: Ministry of Information, William's Marsh Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1992 15:36:58 GMT Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com Message-ID: <1992Feb25.153658.12335@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #01255 Keywords: author=Riddle Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Lines: 43 [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD A film review by Prentiss Riddle Copyright 1992 Prentiss Riddle I just saw UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD and have mixed emotions. It is directed by Wim Wenders, stars William Hurt and Solveig Dommartin (who you'll remember if you saw Wenders' gorgeous WINGS OF DESIRE), and is written by Australian novelist Peter Carey (author of the wonderful book and movie BLISS). Without getting into spoilers, I'll just say that the movie is set in 1999, when a nuclear satellite accident is threatening to start off an automated WWIII in the upper atmosphere. Against this background boy meets girl and boy, girl, and assorted bad guys chase each other across four continents of high tech and urban decay. I'd describe the movie as equally influenced by film noir, cyberpunk and magical realism. The mix doesn't always sit well. It is as slow as the rest of Wim Wenders' languorous work, something I usually enjoy, but the conventions of noir and especially cyberpunk would call for speed. Its plot meanders like a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, playing with our expectations about beginning, middle and end, an effect which worked beautifully in BLISS but doesn't seem to work here. Wenders pays more attention to the science fiction aspect of his cyberpunk theme than most so-called cyberpunk movies -- in fact computer animation and HDTV effects play as important a part in the movie as the stunning landscapes -- but at crucial points the technology leaves reality behind and becomes magic or metaphor. Still, this movie is trying to do a lot of important and exciting things. The sense of "end times" which naturally occurs at the end of a millennium still has many of us by the throat. Yet we escaped the Cold War by the skin of our teeth, and we no longer have a clear focus for our sense of doom. Maybe it's already time for movies which ask how we're going to feel when we wake up on a bright morning in the next millennium to find a day which is much like the one which went before it -- dangerous, yes, but not necessarily the End of the World. -- Prentiss Riddle ("aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada") riddle@rice.edu From /tmp/sf.3881 Wed Mar 31 13:42:04 1993 Xref: lysator.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:68 rec.arts.sf.reviews:16 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: lysator.liu.se!fizban.solace.hsh.se!kitten.umdc.umu.se!sunic!mcsun!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnewsk!cbnewsj!ecl From: leroy@socs.uts.edu.au (G M Heinrich) Subject: REVIEW: UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD Reply-To: leroy@socs.uts.edu.au (G M Heinrich) Organization: Computing Sciences, Uni of Technology, Sydney. Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1992 19:26:59 GMT Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com Message-ID: <1992Dec8.192659.4021@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #01627 Keywords: author=Heinrich Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Lines: 52 [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD A film review by G M Heinrich Copyright 1992 G M Heinrich Review: UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD. Directed Wim Wenders (WINGS OF DESIRE) Lots of actors, including William Hurt, Solveig Dommartin, Sam Neill, Max Von Syndow and Ernie Dingo. The Australian release of UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD is roughly three hours long, cut down from an original length that's rumoured to be between five and seven hours long. Even so, there's more than one movie in the edited length of World: there's at least three distinct sections, and enough stuffing -- in terms of ideas and incomplete, possibly edited-out character development -- to make a few more movies again. Ambitious, in this case, is an understatement. UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD has three basic sections. The first hour is an ordinary chase movie through Europe and the US. The action then moves to Coober Pedy for the final two "acts." Hurt's mother is blind. His father has invented a camera for the blind. Hurt was travelling around the world to film images for his mother. (The scene where Hurt films his sister and her daughter is my favourite of the movie: the daughter tells the camera how she misses her mother, and wishes the mother were there to meet the granddaughter. It's simple and moving, with superbly restrained emotional impact.) The film Hurt makes -- and it's effect on the mother -- is the centre of the second section. And the final third concerns "the disease of images." The father goes one step further with his camera, and records the dreams of Hurt and Dommartin, who become addicted. UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD is co-written by Peter Carey (the narration is reminiscent of Illywacker). It's filmed in 10 countries -- Wenders has said, in interviews, that "the constant crew...were...completely wasted and out of their heads." In some ways, this shows. There was too much material for one movie -- it's disjointed and obviously heavily edited. But for a director like Wenders, severe editing is a plus. And the constant introduction of new themes and plots (and the way once-important plotlines are just forgotten) doesn't distract from the dazzling ideas of the script. Very much worth seeing. Inventive, affecting and more interesting than most of the movies showing now. (That review was followed up by a friend of mine, who said UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD was "good, but dull in places." But he's not good with long movies.) --- G M Heinrich ( leroy@socs.uts.edu.au )