#1007: WENDERS, Wim: Until the End of the World (1991)

WENDERS, Wim (Germany)
Until the End of the World [1991]
Spine #1007
Blu-ray

Conceived as the ultimate road movie, this decades-in-the-making science-fiction epic from Wim Wenders follows the restless Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin) across continents as she pursues a mysterious stranger (William Hurt) in possession of a device that can make the blind see and bring dream images to waking life. With an eclectic soundtrack that gathers a host of the director's favorite musicians, along with gorgeous cinematography by Robby Müller, this breathless adventure in the shadow of Armageddon takes it heroes to the ends of the earth and into the oneiric depths of their own souls. Presented here in its triumphant 287-minute director's cut, Until the End of the World assumes its rightful place as Wenders' magnum opus, a cosmic ode to the pleasures and perils of the image and a prescient meditation on cinema's digital future.

287 minutes

Color
5.1 Surround
in English, French and German
1:66:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2019

Director/Writers

From an original idea by Solveig Dommartin and Wim Wenders.

Screenplay by Peter Carey and Wenders.

Wenders was 46 when he directed Until the End of the World.

Other Wenders films in the Collection:

#814: Alice in the Cities (1974)
#815: Wrong Move (1975)
#816: Kings of the Road (1976)
#793: The American Friend (1977)
#501: Paris, Texas (1984)
#490: Wings of Desire (1987)
#866: Buena Vista Social Club (1999)
#644: Pina (2011)
#1226: Perfect Days (2023)

The Film

Forced by his producers to deliver a 160-minute cut, which Wenders refers to as the "Reader's Digest" version. This "director's cut" fully realizes his initial vision.

From a director who made films specifically called "road movies" (see the Criterion box-set "Road Trilogy" [Spine #813]), this is the ultimate package.

Our characters travel to nine locations before one of them ends up in space (the percentage indicates the approximate screen time):

• Venice (2.5%)
• Paris (9.5%)
• Berlin (6.5%)
• Lisbon (5.5%)
• Moscow (6.5%)
• Beijing (5.5%)
• Tokyo/Hakone (9%)
• San Francisco (11%)
• Australia (44%)

Of paramount thematic importance is the idea of the image.

The film begins with the introduction of the main character, Claire Tourneur (reference to Jacques? — brilliantly played by Solveig Dommartin), who is waking up from her disturbing dreams to a seemingly never-ending party, with a Talking Heads video on the gigantic television.

In short order, we are introduced to her ex, Eugene Fitzpatrick (Sam Neill) and the man who will become her new lover, Sam Farber, aka Trevor McPhee (William Hurt).

And then the film explodes with minor, secondary characters. Some of them are well-developed and add spice — Chico (Chick Ortega), Mr. and Mrs. Mori (Chishû Ryû and Kuniko Miyake), David (David Gulpilil); others feel superflous, like Detective Winter (Rüdiger Vogler)

In any case, by the time we get to Henry and Edith Farber (Max von Sydow and Jeanne Moreau), we're exhausted from all that travel, and the plot points seem a bit forced.

Nevertheless, it's a tour-de-force and we are only left to unwrap all the heavy symbolism, like Eugene's novel which becomes addiction therapy (!) and perhaps we are being urged to ponder whether it's

"In the beginning was the Word." -- John 1:1

or should that be image ...

The Extras

The Booklet

Thirty-six page booklet featuring essays by critics Bilge Ebiri and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on the film and its soundtrack.

Ebiri:

"Wenders has often referred to his Until the End of the World as the 'ultimate road movie,m' and even he may not realize how accurate that description has turned out to be. It certainly was, and remains, the director's most expansive and ambitious effort in the genre that had defined so much of his career, and it would be the last road movie he would make for many years. A box-office disaster upon its initial release, in a version that was truncated at 158 minutes, Until the End of the World quickly gained acceptance as a film maudit, one of those wounded works that still contain trace elements of their thwarted brilliance. The full 287-minute director's cut, on the other hand, is a flat-out masterpiece ...

... Adding to the atmosphere of make-believe are Wender's cinematic allusions, which highlight the artificiality and the visually dense beauty of this world. The director has clearly fallen a little in love with the dead-end millenarian despondency he has conjured. This film is a growing patchwork of allusions, and each stop on Claire and Sam's journey has its own aesthetic reference points. A mad chase scene in Tokyo recalls the work of Samuel Fuller and Seijun Suzuki. French gangsters look like they've stepped out of a Jean-Pierre Melville picture. At one point, Claire and Sam are handcuffed together, like the heroes of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. The existentially despairing psychodrama in the Australian outback of the later scenes could be a cross between Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni (and the film features two of cinema's most iconic faces in Moreau, star of Antonioni's La notte, and von Sydow, Bergman's frequent collaborator)."

Vishnevetsky, on the soundtrack:

"Taken as a whole, the soundtrack expresses that uncertainty about both present and future that is the postmodern condition. Yet Until the End of the World, which begins by looking down on our planet and ends by looking up at it, is not an apocalyptic work; instead, it offers the hope that we may someday move on from our preoccupations, whether technological or emotional, and look back on them as if they were the impermanent romances that figure so prominently in both the plot and the songs. The soundtrack, with its notes of both bittersweetness and gloom, is a part of the film's complex texture, along with the globe-trotting locations, futurological predictions, and elements of genre pastiche. And like Until the End of the World itself, it is ultimately asking timeless questions: How long can this last? Will we still be here tomorrow? Is anyone listening?"

Commentary

None.

Introduction

By Wenders.

Interview 1

With Wenders about the film’s soundtrack.

The music is integral:

• Sax and Violins (Talking Heads)
• Summer Kisses, Winter Tears (Julee Cruise)
• Move with Me (Dub) (Neneh Cherry)
• The Adversary (Crime & the City Solution)
• What's Good (Lou Reed)
• Last Night Sleep (Can)
• Fretless (R.E.M.)
• Days (Elvis Costello)
• Blood of Eden (Peter Gabriel)
• Breakin' the Rules (Robbie Robertson)
• Lagoons (Gondwanaland)
• Travelin' Light (Boulevard of Broken Dreams Orchestra)
• The Twist (Chubby Checker)
• Summer Kisses, Winter Tears (Elvis Presley)
• (I'll Love You) Till the End of the World (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds)
• It Takes Time (Patti Smith & Fred "Sonic" Smith)
• Death's Door (Depeche Mode)
• Calling All Angels (Jane Siberry & k.d. lang)
• Humans from Earth (T-Bone Burnett)
• Sleeping in the Devil's Bed (Daniel Lanois)
• Until the End of the World (U2)
• Pygmy vocal recordings
• Aboriginal music recordings
• La Vieil Homme de la mer (Laurent Petitgand)

Conversation

Between Wenders and musician David Byrne.

Japanese behind-the-scenes

Program detailing the creation of the film’s high-definition sequences.

Interview 2

With Wenders from 2001.

Short film

The Song from 1991 by Uli M Schueppel detailing the recording of “(I’ll Love You) Till the End of the World” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Deleted scenes

Trailer

89

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