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- Newsgroups: aus.films
- Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!metro!socs.uts.edu.au!syzygy!leroy
- From: leroy@socs.uts.edu.au (Leroy)
- Subject: Review: Until the end of the world
- Message-ID: <leroy.722053867@syzygy>
- Keywords: what is all this about bushrangers
- Sender: news@socs.uts.edu.au
- Organization: Computing Sciences, Uni of Technology, Sydney.
- Date: 18 Nov 92 02:31:07 GMT
- Lines: 44
-
-
- 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..." 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 grandaughter. 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..." is cowritten 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.
-
- --- G M Heinrich ( leroy@socs.uts.edu.au )
- I did not know the cure for the disease of images, but I believed
- in the healing power of words and stories.
-