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Until the End of the World
There is a moment at the beginning of the third act in Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World that radiates with emotion and poignancy. The scene is so flawlessly executed, so effortlessly restrained, and so completely true that I found myself instantly forgiving all of the previous shortcomings of this uneven but fascinating film, because I realized that Wenders has set up the entire journey that the characters have taken for this moment. The moment comes as a plane flies over the deserts of Australia. Somewhere, a nuclear device has gone off that is so powerful, the rest of civilized world could possibly be eradicated. We do not see the nuclear blast go off, but rather follow the two chief characters' desperation as their plane's engine gives out and they quietly crash into the sand domes. Throughout the film, as these characters have pursued one another through six previous countries for the past several months, a nuclear holocaust has been eminent. Nevertheless, these people are obsessed with their own personal spiritual quests. They realize that the plane's engine failure signifies that the end of the world has probably come, and their reactions are shown in simple facial expressions and movement. They are deeply concerned, but even as their plane crashes into the sand, they are helpless to do anything but continue their journey. All the while, Peter Gabriel's soulful "Blood of Eden" plays in the background, a song about bliss even in the midst of torment, and suddenly, the weight of the characters' long, endless journey has caught up with both them and us. With this weight, we see the severe effects of a nuclear holocaust--not in the special effects themselves, but rather, in the small, personal story of how its entrance intruded upon these peoples' lives. Thus, an event of epic proportions is transformed into a probing, internal drama, emphasizing the effect that total devastation would have on individuals, which is, after all, what the world's population is made up of. It is the single greatest scene concerning nuclear destruction that I have ever seen. In the hands of any other director, such a scene could have failed. An emphasis would have been placed on the special effects of a nuclear bomb going off, and we would have been given spectacular shots of the world's major cities collapsing under total ruin. These scenes would have been exciting and suspenseful, and its soundtrack would have been loud and upbeat. Certainly, the audience would have been thrilled, but they would have forgotten that inside all of these vanishing buildings and historical monuments, human lives were ending. Until the End of the World refuses to forget that crucial fact, and it is the better film for it. Director/co-writer Wenders' best film is Wings of Desire, a wonderful experience that centers around angels as they walk the streets in Berlin, observing the lives of humans. In that film, Wenders draws his characters and their crucial decisions in painstaking detail, so that literally every moment on screen leads to a final profound revelation about the sanctity of human life. In Until the End of the World, he utilizes the same painstaking method and centers it around the idea of potential nuclear devastation, showing the characters and their journey around the world with a similar internalized focus. Unfortunately, the events leading up to the great scene described above are often so internalized that it is nearly impossible to see the bigger picture, including the plot. Set in the not-so-distant future, the story centers around outlaw Sam Farber (William Hurt), who is traveling the world with a bizarre-looking device that captures people's memories and stores them for later use. We are never quite sure what the device is or why he needs it until the film's final moments. I concur with Roger Ebert, who wrote in his review of the film, "Hurt's travels are never explained; he was either (choose one) in search of urgent materials for his father's experiments, or racing aimlessly around the globe in obedience to Wenders' brainstorm." As a result of this lack of clarity, we have a hard time following most of the narrative. So choppy, in fact, is the storytelling that I have a feeling that Wenders was writing much of the script as he went along In any case, Sam is being pursued by the restless Claire (Solveig Dommartin), who finds herself so in love with him that she is willing to follow him where he goes. Their relationship is poorly developed; I never understood what Claire sees in Farber except his intriguing, mysterious persona, or why that seems to be enough to follow him to every corner of the earth is anyone's guess. Sam is certainly charming, but Hurt plays him as a brooding bore--far too underwhelming for the flamboyant Claire. But wait! There's more: Claire herself is being pursued by her intelligent but droll boyfriend Eugene (Sam Neill), who narrates the story. Again, Sam seems far too wise to stick around and follow Claire when she clearly has no interest in him, but follow her he does, and he even hires a private detective named Raymond (Eddie Mitchell) to help him. Raymond himself becomes fickle about the whole job, and pretty soon, we are so lost that we can no longer tell who is pursing who, or why. Part of the problem, I think, is that unlike Wings of Desire which was set in the limited confines of Berlin, Until the End of the World was filmed in seven different countries on four different continents. Because Wenders is attempting the same quiet, internal approach here as he did in Wings, and because the canvas is so much broader here in terms of setting and storyline, it is our natural instinct to expect a larger, more epic film than what Wenders allows. As a consequence, the story and the much of the characters' motivations are lost in translation. And yet, even in this uneven storytelling, we cannot help but be mystified by the characters and their own internal journeys. We may never understand why they pursue one another, but there is no denying that Hurt, Dommartin, Neill, and Mitchell create compelling characters who are witty, realistic, and delightful to watch. Their interactions and constant shifts of alliances, set to the backdrop of a world in panic over the impending crisis of nuclear desolation, make for viewing that is engaging despite of Wenders' muddled approach. Indeed, Wenders shows us so many diverse characters in so many diverse cultures that we cannot help but want to tag along. By the time we reach the third act, we have the wonderful aforementioned scene before meeting Sam's parents (played wonderfully by Max von Sydow and Jeanne Moreau) in the wild Australian outback. At this point, the film shifts from a mystery/road picture to a downright fantasy, as we learn what Sam has been doing all around the world and what his strange machine really is. These scenes work the best, but we realize with their inclusion that there has been enough in Until the End of the World for three movies. Still, the theme of potential nuclear destruction holds all of these different plots together, and reminds us that the film is, in the end, about human beings discovering themselves in the midst of humanity's end. Perhaps that is why the film's third act is so important: Sam's machine has the ability to replay dreams, and in an isolated desert where you do not know if the rest of the world is alive or destroyed, dreams are the most powerful necessities that you have. Until the End of the World was one of two films made in the early 1990s that gave viewers a quiet approach to nuclear holocaust. The other was Roger Corman's underrated Frankenstein Unbound, which contrasted Mary Shelly's classic tale with a modern day scientist who discovers that he has created a weapon that has turned him into the future's Victor Frankenstein. Both films appropriately emphasize the human drama of such catastrophes, and were probably made in response to the scab of the Cold War that was still clotting as the citizens of the United States and Russia attempted to heal after years of mutual death threats. In the end, I admire the films about equally: Both contain scenes of sheer brilliance and inspiration encased in stories that never quite add up. Nevertheless, even if we never connect to the characters' journey in Until the End of the World, we cannot deny that we are engaged by it, and when the film finally reaches its point of intense revelation, we are deeply effected. Cast: A Warner Brother's Film. Directed
by Wim Wenders. Written by Wenders, Peter Carey, and Michael Almereyda.
Rated R, for language and brief nudity/sexuality. Running time:
158 minutes (a director's cut running 280 minutes exists, though
it is unseen by me). Original United States theatrical release
date: December 25, 1991. Questions? Comments? E-mail me: danel_the_tinman@hotmail.com |
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