Movie Details
| Title: | Until the End of the World | |
| Director: | Wim Wenders | |
| Year: | 1991 | |
| Genre: | Road Movie | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.11.23 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (1)
- Paris, Texas
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.11.23 | Blu-ray | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2023 roll: 6 spine: 1007 Well I suppose it had to happen sometime. At least it's not midnight. Really if I was PLANNING to watch a nearly 5-hour movie this would be the best time to start! I've more or less liked the other Wim Wenders movies I've seen (Paris, Texas; Wings of Desire; Buena Vista Social Club; the documentary for making of Million Dollar Hotel), and a sci-fi road movie sounds fun!Iincidentally, this is the only thing I know about this movie; it was a complete blind-buy. So... See you on the other side??? Ah ok this is the director's cut. The theatrical cut was around three hours. That makes more sense, like how Ridley Scott's talking about his 5-hour Napolean cut. In that context, it's still a really fucking long movie but at least there's some context. And to be honest, sometimes the length helps a movie to feel suitable epic or momentous. Then again, sometimes not. This was a bit of both. When I try to imagine a three hour cut of this I'm not sure what they would cut. Certainly there's plenty that can go, but they can make a broad range of different movies there. If they tried to fit everything in - all the locations and all the stuff in the second half - that'd make for a pretty abreviated experience to be sure. However, you could make an "ultimate road trip" movie with just the fist half of the film, or you could make a sci-fi movie with just the second half. The road trip stuff really comes to a screeching halt when they reach Australia and kind of becomes a different movie. They work together... kinda... in a few ways that are nice, but I kinda think Wim Wenders had an idea to make a movie in Australia and conned the producers into letting him travel across the globe for a while too. Did I mention that it's fucking long? It's past midnight now. It basically killed the day. And I'm not afraid of long movies... I watched Intolerance, I sat through Snaked on a Plane for an entire day... if it was available when I was watching silents I probably would've seen the 8-hour cut of Erich von Stroheim's Greed. Part of me couldn't help but compare this to Fassbinder's World on a Wire (which was technically a TV movie like a 2-night deal) which isn't fair. For one this movie came out in the early 90s which feels odd to me. I wasn't expecting so much early CGI, although picturing a future where search software is called "Bounty Bear" where a 3d-model of a bear walks along a digital street looking in buildings saying "I'm searching... hold on a minute... found him" is pretty hilarious. Although I should say they nailed the car dashboard maps and video calls... so all the future stuff (the film is set in 1999) is pretty fun. Like most of the cars are these boxy 80s things then there's a random buck rogers rocket-car out of nowhere. There's not much actual speculation in setting the film in the future though... mostly I'm surprised they had budget to production design these future props and wardrobe and still go literally around the world to shoot. The stuff in Australia is really where it enters Altered States territory, but with early digital imagery that looks like stock CG effects now but was probably pretty novel back then. And the soundtrack is also pretty great. Stuff like Julee Cruise and Can mixed in with U2, REM, and Lou Reed. In the end, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm glad I watched it, and there were segments which I found captivating. But there were also times where I'd check the time and think "it's been 80 minutes and I have no idea what this movie is" or "well, only 3 hours left." The ending also definitely keeps going to the point where I was like "end already geez." Minor spoiler alert (it's in the damn title) but there's a sorta-kinda apocalyptic event in the movie and I thought "oh, poetic ending. nice framing device." but there was 2 HOURS left!!! There was a whole movie's worth of movie after I thought it was ending! Those last two hours were the most interesting to me. ok. 1am. The bad news is I'm not getting through this pile today but the good news is I have time for one more. Next! |
