Lost for over 40 years, Bloody Disgusting has learned that Radiance Films presents the Blu-ray debut of Jean-Denis Bonan‘s obscure movie A Woman Kills this coming February.
Restored and available in a limited edition Blu-ray (Srp 34.95), rediscover the little-seen French murder mystery on February 7, 2023.
Filmed in the tumultuous events of May 1968, Jean-Denis Bonan’s A Woman Kills never found distribution due to controversy around the director’s first film and producer Anatole Dauman was unable to find distribution for the film for 45 years until Luna Park Films brought it back to life in a new restoration.
Now released on Blu-ray for the first time anywhere, audiences outside of France can finally experience this utterly singular film, a new wave-influenced serial killer film that presents its narrative in an almost true crime approach yet focuses more on the psychological aspect with echoes of German Expressionism and Franju, set to a discordant,...
Restored and available in a limited edition Blu-ray (Srp 34.95), rediscover the little-seen French murder mystery on February 7, 2023.
Filmed in the tumultuous events of May 1968, Jean-Denis Bonan’s A Woman Kills never found distribution due to controversy around the director’s first film and producer Anatole Dauman was unable to find distribution for the film for 45 years until Luna Park Films brought it back to life in a new restoration.
Now released on Blu-ray for the first time anywhere, audiences outside of France can finally experience this utterly singular film, a new wave-influenced serial killer film that presents its narrative in an almost true crime approach yet focuses more on the psychological aspect with echoes of German Expressionism and Franju, set to a discordant,...
- 1/11/2023
- by John Squires
- bloody-disgusting.com
The following appeared in Filmmaker‘s Spring, 2000 edition accompanying All Tomorrow’s Yesterdays, an article in which four filmmakers reflect on the work of Alain Resnais. — Editor Anatole Dauman, through his company Argos Films, produced or co-produced many of the masterworks of postwar European cinema – including Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog; Hiroshima, Mon Amour; Last Year at Marienbad; and Muriel.Following his death in 1998, his daughter, Florence Dauman (herself a producer of A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Cinema), assumed control of the company, which today houses the greatest collection of independent cinema in France. Ms. Dauman […]
The post “What Would Resnais Bring Back from Japan? I Had Not a Clue”: Producer Anatole Dauman on Alain Resnais, Night and Fog and Hiroshima Mon Amour first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “What Would Resnais Bring Back from Japan? I Had Not a Clue”: Producer Anatole Dauman on Alain Resnais, Night and Fog and Hiroshima Mon Amour first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 8/11/2022
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The following appeared in Filmmaker‘s Spring, 2000 edition accompanying All Tomorrow’s Yesterdays, an article in which four filmmakers reflect on the work of Alain Resnais. — Editor Anatole Dauman, through his company Argos Films, produced or co-produced many of the masterworks of postwar European cinema – including Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog; Hiroshima, Mon Amour; Last Year at Marienbad; and Muriel.Following his death in 1998, his daughter, Florence Dauman (herself a producer of A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Cinema), assumed control of the company, which today houses the greatest collection of independent cinema in France. Ms. Dauman […]
The post “What Would Resnais Bring Back from Japan? I Had Not a Clue”: Producer Anatole Dauman on Alain Resnais, Night and Fog and Hiroshima Mon Amour first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “What Would Resnais Bring Back from Japan? I Had Not a Clue”: Producer Anatole Dauman on Alain Resnais, Night and Fog and Hiroshima Mon Amour first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 8/11/2022
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
In 2000, Filmmaker, timed to a traveling retrospective, asked four directors to reflect on the work of legendary French film director Alain Resnais. We are reposting this piece now as another retrospective, Film Forum’s Alain Resnais 100, opens tomorrow. The below films, with the exception of Je T’aime, Je T’aime, are all also streaming now on the Criterion Channel. See as well this article’s original sidebar, in which producer Anatole Dauman reflects on the making of Night and Fog and Hiroshima, Mon Amour. — Editor Perhaps more than those of any other modern director, the films of Alain Resnais are […]
The post All Tomorrow’s Yesterdays: Keith Gordon, Radley Metzger, Errol Morris and Christopher Münch on the Films of Alain Resnais first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post All Tomorrow’s Yesterdays: Keith Gordon, Radley Metzger, Errol Morris and Christopher Münch on the Films of Alain Resnais first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 8/11/2022
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
In 2000, Filmmaker, timed to a traveling retrospective, asked four directors to reflect on the work of legendary French film director Alain Resnais. We are reposting this piece now as another retrospective, Film Forum’s Alain Resnais 100, opens tomorrow. The below films, with the exception of Je T’aime, Je T’aime, are all also streaming now on the Criterion Channel. See as well this article’s original sidebar, in which producer Anatole Dauman reflects on the making of Night and Fog and Hiroshima, Mon Amour. — Editor Perhaps more than those of any other modern director, the films of Alain Resnais are […]
The post All Tomorrow’s Yesterdays: Keith Gordon, Radley Metzger, Errol Morris and Christopher Münch on the Films of Alain Resnais first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post All Tomorrow’s Yesterdays: Keith Gordon, Radley Metzger, Errol Morris and Christopher Münch on the Films of Alain Resnais first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 8/11/2022
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
France’s Robert Bresson’s theory about a ‘pure’ cinema defies basic rules of the movie mainstream — like, ‘no acting allowed.’ But his movies remained faithful to his creed, even as they became increasingly pessimistic. This story of an unloved and abused young girl is considered one of Bresson’s masterpieces. The theme is human suffering in the void left by the absence of faith, and the tone is unrelentingly pitiless.
Mouchette
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 363
1967 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 81 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 8, 2020 / 39.95
Starring: Nadine Nortier, Jean-Claude Guilbert, Maria Cardinal, Paul Hebert, Jean Vimenet, Marie Susini, Suzanne Huguenin, Marine Trichet, Raymonde Chabrun.
Cinematography: Ghislain Cloquet
Film Editor: Raymond Lamy
Original Music: Jean Wiener
Written by Robert Bresson from the book Nouvelle histoire de Mouchette by Georges Bernanos
Produced by Anatole Dauman
Directed by Robert Bresson
The first time one sees Robert Bresson speak, we...
Mouchette
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 363
1967 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 81 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 8, 2020 / 39.95
Starring: Nadine Nortier, Jean-Claude Guilbert, Maria Cardinal, Paul Hebert, Jean Vimenet, Marie Susini, Suzanne Huguenin, Marine Trichet, Raymonde Chabrun.
Cinematography: Ghislain Cloquet
Film Editor: Raymond Lamy
Original Music: Jean Wiener
Written by Robert Bresson from the book Nouvelle histoire de Mouchette by Georges Bernanos
Produced by Anatole Dauman
Directed by Robert Bresson
The first time one sees Robert Bresson speak, we...
- 1/26/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
An amazing Blu-ray year is capped by a genuine favorite, rescued by its filmmaker and set aside for almost twenty years. Wim Wenders was forced to make a shortened version of what he hoped would be his greatest success, following Wings of Desire: but he cleverly saved his 4.5-hour uncut version, making its Blu-ray debut on December 10. Longform video is currently the rage, so perhaps the time has finally come for the uncut Bis ans Ende der Welt. The music soundtrack is nothing less than fantastic, not to be missed.
Until the End of the World
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1007
1991 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 158, 181, 287 min. / Bis ans Ende der Welt / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 10, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Solveig Dommartin, William Hurt, Sam Neill, Rüdiger Vogler, Jeanne Moreau, Max von Sydow, Chishu Ryu, Kuniko Miyake, Allen Garfield, David Gulpilil, Ernie Dingo, Lois Chiles, Adelle Lutz, Chick Ortega, Eddy Mitchell,...
Until the End of the World
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1007
1991 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 158, 181, 287 min. / Bis ans Ende der Welt / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 10, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Solveig Dommartin, William Hurt, Sam Neill, Rüdiger Vogler, Jeanne Moreau, Max von Sydow, Chishu Ryu, Kuniko Miyake, Allen Garfield, David Gulpilil, Ernie Dingo, Lois Chiles, Adelle Lutz, Chick Ortega, Eddy Mitchell,...
- 11/30/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Emmanuel Finkiel’s haunting adaptation of seminal author Marguerite Duras’ semi-autobiographical novel The War: A Memoir stars a luminescent Mélanie Thierry in a riveting performance as Duras.
Mélanie Thierry (The Princess of Montpensier), Benoit Magimel (The Piano Teacher), Benjamin Biolay (Personal Shopper),Shulamit Adar
Watch the Trailer!
Music Box Films, one of the finest of the arthouse distributors will be releasing this emotionally complex story of love, loss, and perseverance against the backdrop of war. Memoir of War opens in New York August 17 at Film Forum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center, and in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Royal and at the Regal Edwards Westpark 8 in Orange County on August 24. Other cities will follow.
It’s 1944, and Duras is an active Resistance member along with her husband, writer Robert Antelme, and a band of fellow subversives in Nazi-occupied Paris. When Antelme is deported to Dachau by the Gestapo,...
Mélanie Thierry (The Princess of Montpensier), Benoit Magimel (The Piano Teacher), Benjamin Biolay (Personal Shopper),Shulamit Adar
Watch the Trailer!
Music Box Films, one of the finest of the arthouse distributors will be releasing this emotionally complex story of love, loss, and perseverance against the backdrop of war. Memoir of War opens in New York August 17 at Film Forum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center, and in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Royal and at the Regal Edwards Westpark 8 in Orange County on August 24. Other cities will follow.
It’s 1944, and Duras is an active Resistance member along with her husband, writer Robert Antelme, and a band of fellow subversives in Nazi-occupied Paris. When Antelme is deported to Dachau by the Gestapo,...
- 8/16/2018
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
That bad boy of (mostly) French cinema Walerian Borowczyk has been converting doubters into fans for sixty years, even though his pictures were never easy to see. Before he took a headlong leap into soft-core epics, he made some of the most creative and influential short films of his time — and they eventually became more erotic as well.
The Walerian Borowczyk Short Film Collection
Blu-ray
Olive Films
1959-1984 / B&W and Color / 1:66, 1:78 and 1:37 flat Academy / 144 min. / Street Date April 25, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 24.95
Directed by Walerian Borowczyk
This release brings back memories of traveling short subject shows, usually several reels’ worth of experimental films that would tour college campuses. Even in High School I’d drag my girlfriend to the University of Riverside, where huge crowds looking for the ‘In’ place to be would stare in attention at hours of abstract visuals, expressing their approval...
The Walerian Borowczyk Short Film Collection
Blu-ray
Olive Films
1959-1984 / B&W and Color / 1:66, 1:78 and 1:37 flat Academy / 144 min. / Street Date April 25, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 24.95
Directed by Walerian Borowczyk
This release brings back memories of traveling short subject shows, usually several reels’ worth of experimental films that would tour college campuses. Even in High School I’d drag my girlfriend to the University of Riverside, where huge crowds looking for the ‘In’ place to be would stare in attention at hours of abstract visuals, expressing their approval...
- 5/13/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Alain Resnais' deceptively conventional drama is really about interpersonal dynamics: lives lived in the here and now are really anchored in events and concerns from the past, that bleed into the present. Delphine Seyrig's antique dealer invites an old beau to visit, but instead of clarity and direction finds just more personal confusion. Muriel, ou Le temps d'un retour Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 824 1963 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 116 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date July 19, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Kérien, Nita Klein, Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée, Claude Sainval, Laurence Badie, Jean Champion Cinematography Sacha Vierny Production Design Jacques Saulnier Film Editor Claudine Merlin, Kenout Peltier, Eric Pluet Original Music Paul Colline Written by Jean Cayrol Produced by Anatole Dauman Directed by Alain Resnais
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Back in film school we'd make pronouncements like, why do all movies have to have such structured plots, with organized conflicts and resolutions?...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Back in film school we'd make pronouncements like, why do all movies have to have such structured plots, with organized conflicts and resolutions?...
- 7/29/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The first and most powerful Holocaust reassessment extends the horror with the assertion that, in 1955, its reality is already fading from the world memory. Alain Resnais uses the form of the art movie and his own essay-film innovations to communicate the yawning wound in the human consciousness. Night and Fog Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 197 1955 / Color & B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 32 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date July 19, 2016 / 39.95 Narrator Michel Bouquet Cinematography Ghislain Cloquet, Sacha Vierny Assistant Directors André Heinreich, Jean-Charles Lauthe, Chris Marker Film Editor Alain Resnais Original Music Hanns Eisler Written by Jean Cayrol Produced by Anatole Dauman, Samy Halfon, Philippe Lifchitz Directed by Alain Resnais
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Although I review more than my share of grim shows about the Holocaust, I don't think I have an unusually morbid curiosity; subjects like the Shoah and The Bomb are important problems difficult to fully understand.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Although I review more than my share of grim shows about the Holocaust, I don't think I have an unusually morbid curiosity; subjects like the Shoah and The Bomb are important problems difficult to fully understand.
- 7/17/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Coinciding with a 2000 retrospective of Alain Resnais’ work organized by both the American Cinematheque and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, producer Florence Dauman gave Filmmaker these quotes from her father, Anatole Dauman, about working with the great director. Through his company, Argos Films, Dauman produced or co-produced many of the masterworks of postwar European cinema – including Resnais’s Night and Fog; Hiroshima, Mon Amour; Last Year at Marienbad; and Muriel. On the occasion of Resnais’ death yesterday at 91, we are reprinting them here. Night and Fog (1956) “It was our first short film together. Would he accept […]...
- 3/3/2014
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Coinciding with a 2000 retrospective of Alain Resnais’ work organized by both the American Cinematheque and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, producer Florence Dauman gave Filmmaker these quotes from her father, Anatole Dauman, about working with the great director. Through his company, Argos Films, Dauman produced or co-produced many of the masterworks of postwar European cinema – including Resnais’s Night and Fog; Hiroshima, Mon Amour; Last Year at Marienbad; and Muriel. On the occasion of Resnais’ death yesterday at 91, we are reprinting them here. Night and Fog (1956) “It was our first short film together. Would he accept […]...
- 3/3/2014
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
(Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, 1961; BFI, 12)
Excited by the atmosphere surrounding the French New Wave in 1960, the sociologist Edgar Morin suggested to the ethnographic documentarist Jean Rouch that he look at present-day France the way he observed Africa. The result was this cinematic landmark, produced by Anatole Dauman (an important supporter of Resnais, Godard, Marker and others) and co-directed by Rouch and Morin, who brought together a cross-section of young Parisians to meet, talk and collaborate on the picture during the summer of 1960. The participants interview people in the street, posing the question: "Are you happy?" They discuss their own lives as students, factory workers, young marrieds, immigrants, and they argue about race, class and the current wars in Algeria and the Congo. They go on vacation to the Côte d'Azur (where they interview would-be starlets). In perhaps the film's most memorable sequence, one of the contributors speaks of her...
Excited by the atmosphere surrounding the French New Wave in 1960, the sociologist Edgar Morin suggested to the ethnographic documentarist Jean Rouch that he look at present-day France the way he observed Africa. The result was this cinematic landmark, produced by Anatole Dauman (an important supporter of Resnais, Godard, Marker and others) and co-directed by Rouch and Morin, who brought together a cross-section of young Parisians to meet, talk and collaborate on the picture during the summer of 1960. The participants interview people in the street, posing the question: "Are you happy?" They discuss their own lives as students, factory workers, young marrieds, immigrants, and they argue about race, class and the current wars in Algeria and the Congo. They go on vacation to the Côte d'Azur (where they interview would-be starlets). In perhaps the film's most memorable sequence, one of the contributors speaks of her...
- 7/13/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
The renowned Japanese director, who died on 15 January, was best known for his explicit In the Realm of the Senses – but there was far more to his work than that. We take a look back at his career highlights
Reading on a mobile? Watch video clip here
After a short apprenticeship at the Shochiku film studio, Nagisa Oshima made his directorial debut aged 27 with A Town of Love and Hope in 1959, but it was his 1960 follow-up, Cruel Story of Youth, that propelled him to national attention. Drawing on techniques of the then-nascent European new waves, and striking a chord with its frustrated adolescent protagonists, Cruel Story hit a nerve in the roiling social mood of the early 60s.
Reading on a mobile? Watch video clip here
After his explicitly political Night and Fog in Japan (also 1960) was withdrawn by a nervous Shochiku, Oshima spent the next few years working in TV,...
Reading on a mobile? Watch video clip here
After a short apprenticeship at the Shochiku film studio, Nagisa Oshima made his directorial debut aged 27 with A Town of Love and Hope in 1959, but it was his 1960 follow-up, Cruel Story of Youth, that propelled him to national attention. Drawing on techniques of the then-nascent European new waves, and striking a chord with its frustrated adolescent protagonists, Cruel Story hit a nerve in the roiling social mood of the early 60s.
Reading on a mobile? Watch video clip here
After his explicitly political Night and Fog in Japan (also 1960) was withdrawn by a nervous Shochiku, Oshima spent the next few years working in TV,...
- 1/15/2013
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
From Cannes... In the 1980s coproductions were not very fashionable, a fact that I as an American acquisitions executive never thought about. They had been more popular in the 70s, mosly between Italy and France or France and Germany (with Anatole Dauman working with Volker Schlondorff on this year’s retrospective film The Tin Drum or with Wim Wenders). Perhaps 1 out of 10 or even 1 out of 20 films were coproductions. Now in France alone, 1 out of every 2 films is a coproduction and for the small territories, all the films are coproductions. This topic of coproduction is…...
- 5/13/2010
- Sydney's Buzz
Bankrolled in succession by French producer Anatole Dauman, Nagisa Oshima’s In The Realm Of The Senses (1976) and Empire Of Passion (1978) have always been packaged together, not least by Dauman, who looked to seize on the loosening of censorship codes to bring a new level of sexual explicitness to the art film. The latter was even released under the title In The Realm Of Passion in an effort to yoke it to the earlier film, which had scandalized the world with its unsimulated sex scenes and graphic, ritualized castration. But Oshima balked on replicating the pornographic hook for ...
- 5/27/2009
- avclub.com
At its current length, it shapes up as a major must-see for specialty film lovers while the presence of William Hurt, giving one of his best performances at the head of a talented, and often distinguished, international cast, should lure in more mainstream types. And the film's first half is so visually dazzling and moodily hip, that the picture could easily leap to the level of pop phenomenon.
Essentially the story of two sets of journeys, one nearly circumnaviga-
Essentially the story of two sets of journeys, one nearly circumnaviga-ting the globe, the other plunging deep into psychic recesses, the film takes place during 1999 when an out-of-control nuclear-armed satellite threatens to explode into the earth, a situation that has provoked general social disorder and economic chaos. The action is narrated by novelist Eugene Fitzpatrick (Sam Neill) whose bored hipster girlfriend, Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin), has agreed to drive some stolen loot to Paris.
Farther on, she rescues a mysterious stranger, Trevor McPhee (Hurt), from a pursuing Australian gunman (Ernie Diongo), only to have the man return the favor by stealing part of her loot. Back in Paris, she accidently runs into the Australian again and, by redialing a video phone he has just used, hooks up with a Berlin detective, Philip Winter (Rudiger Vogler), who has a line on McPhee's whereabouts.
With the cast largely introduced, the complications still continue piling up, as Claire first discovers that McPhee is a fugitive from an Australian opal robbery, and then that he is wanted even more desperately by the U.S. government for industrial espionage. Catching up with and losing McPhee several times with the aid of Eugene and Philip, Claire travels from Paris to Lisbon, Moscow, China, Tokyo, rural Japan, and San Francisco (where they run into a comically despicable car dealer played by Alan Garfield) before finally ending up in a remote section of Australia.
During their travels, McPhee, whose real name is Sam Farber, reveals that he is the son of a missing scientist, Henry Farber (Max von Sydow), who has invented a camera that can take pictures that blind people can see, once they and the picture-taker have been hooked up to the same computer apparatus. Sam has been traveling the world, surreptitiously taking pictures of his family for his blind mother Edith (Jeanne Moreau) to see. He has had to use an alias since the U.S. government, for whom Henry worked, wants both the scientist and his invention back.
On the way to the Farber research installation -- a high-tech warren buried beneath an aboriginal community -- a nuclear detonation wipes out all electrical circuits, cutting everyone off from the outside world. In isolation and tremendous familial conflict, the Farbers, with Claire's crucial help, first develop the pictures that Edith will see and then, following her death, embark on a series of experiments that allow them to ''videotape'' their own dreams and play them back on screens.
In an unforseen development, however, Henry, Sam and Claire develop an addiction to viewing their own dreams, and ultimately require desperate measures before they can reintegrate themselves into so-called normal life.
The film's designs of the urban future are stunning. Video screens with their own distracting images abound everywhere: in display units, telecommunications devices, spying devices and portable playback machines. Both Winter and a Russian counterpart use amusing video-game-like displays for their computerized missing person searches. During the first half, frames encompassing cityscapes are crowded with elements, often utilize optical mattes, and cinematographer Robby Muller's palette looks like it has electrical current flowing through it. The action is -- thanks in part to a soundtrack jammed with rock and pop tunes -- suffused with a doomed freneticism.
During the 90 minutes that take place at the Farber outpost, the pace is gentler and the cinematography more naturalistic, except for the ''recorded'' dream sequences. Wenders and HDTV designer Sean Naughton have produced a parade of dense video imagery that manages to be both sharp and precise, and symbolic and opaque, at the same time.
Wenders is clearly well-read in social thought, and, among other things, the film provides a valuable meditation on the conflict between atomizing, high-tech media and more traditional forms of human contact. In fact, the entire work can be very easily read as a study of the nature of film and television watching, and the enlightening and debilitating consequences. However, just as the film appears to take its most austere and forbidding tone, it hits you with a huge emotional wallop.
with a scene in which Edith sees the recorded sight and sound of her grown-up daughter (Lois Chiles) and a granddaughter she didn't know she had. It's a devastating effect.
Although the ending is not a conventionally happy one, philosophically speaking, it is optimistic, though in a particularly tough-minded way.
During the film's three hours and particularly during the second half, Wenders occasionally resorts to platitudes to make his points, but the overall development of the film is extremely sophisticated and deeply felt.
UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD
Trans Pacific Films
A Road Movies Film Production, Argos Films, Village Roadshow production
Director Wim Wenders
Producer Jonathan Taplin
Exec. producer (U.S. and Japan)Anatole Dauman
Producers Anatole Dauman, Jonathan Taplin
Screenplay Peter Carey, Wim Wenders
Based on an original idea by Wim Wenders,
Solveig Dommartin
Director of photography Robby Muller
Picture and music editor Peter Przygodda
Production design, futuristic objectsThierry
Flamand
Production designer for Australia Sally Campbell
High Definition Video designer Sean Naughton
Musical score Graeme Revell
Color/Dolby
Cast:
Claire Tourneur Solveig Dommartin
Trevor McPhee/Sam Farber William Hurt
Eugene Fitzpatrick Sam Neill
Henry Farber Max von Sydow
Edith Farber Jeanne Moreau
Philip Winter Rudiger Vogler
Running time -- 179 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
Essentially the story of two sets of journeys, one nearly circumnaviga-
Essentially the story of two sets of journeys, one nearly circumnaviga-ting the globe, the other plunging deep into psychic recesses, the film takes place during 1999 when an out-of-control nuclear-armed satellite threatens to explode into the earth, a situation that has provoked general social disorder and economic chaos. The action is narrated by novelist Eugene Fitzpatrick (Sam Neill) whose bored hipster girlfriend, Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin), has agreed to drive some stolen loot to Paris.
Farther on, she rescues a mysterious stranger, Trevor McPhee (Hurt), from a pursuing Australian gunman (Ernie Diongo), only to have the man return the favor by stealing part of her loot. Back in Paris, she accidently runs into the Australian again and, by redialing a video phone he has just used, hooks up with a Berlin detective, Philip Winter (Rudiger Vogler), who has a line on McPhee's whereabouts.
With the cast largely introduced, the complications still continue piling up, as Claire first discovers that McPhee is a fugitive from an Australian opal robbery, and then that he is wanted even more desperately by the U.S. government for industrial espionage. Catching up with and losing McPhee several times with the aid of Eugene and Philip, Claire travels from Paris to Lisbon, Moscow, China, Tokyo, rural Japan, and San Francisco (where they run into a comically despicable car dealer played by Alan Garfield) before finally ending up in a remote section of Australia.
During their travels, McPhee, whose real name is Sam Farber, reveals that he is the son of a missing scientist, Henry Farber (Max von Sydow), who has invented a camera that can take pictures that blind people can see, once they and the picture-taker have been hooked up to the same computer apparatus. Sam has been traveling the world, surreptitiously taking pictures of his family for his blind mother Edith (Jeanne Moreau) to see. He has had to use an alias since the U.S. government, for whom Henry worked, wants both the scientist and his invention back.
On the way to the Farber research installation -- a high-tech warren buried beneath an aboriginal community -- a nuclear detonation wipes out all electrical circuits, cutting everyone off from the outside world. In isolation and tremendous familial conflict, the Farbers, with Claire's crucial help, first develop the pictures that Edith will see and then, following her death, embark on a series of experiments that allow them to ''videotape'' their own dreams and play them back on screens.
In an unforseen development, however, Henry, Sam and Claire develop an addiction to viewing their own dreams, and ultimately require desperate measures before they can reintegrate themselves into so-called normal life.
The film's designs of the urban future are stunning. Video screens with their own distracting images abound everywhere: in display units, telecommunications devices, spying devices and portable playback machines. Both Winter and a Russian counterpart use amusing video-game-like displays for their computerized missing person searches. During the first half, frames encompassing cityscapes are crowded with elements, often utilize optical mattes, and cinematographer Robby Muller's palette looks like it has electrical current flowing through it. The action is -- thanks in part to a soundtrack jammed with rock and pop tunes -- suffused with a doomed freneticism.
During the 90 minutes that take place at the Farber outpost, the pace is gentler and the cinematography more naturalistic, except for the ''recorded'' dream sequences. Wenders and HDTV designer Sean Naughton have produced a parade of dense video imagery that manages to be both sharp and precise, and symbolic and opaque, at the same time.
Wenders is clearly well-read in social thought, and, among other things, the film provides a valuable meditation on the conflict between atomizing, high-tech media and more traditional forms of human contact. In fact, the entire work can be very easily read as a study of the nature of film and television watching, and the enlightening and debilitating consequences. However, just as the film appears to take its most austere and forbidding tone, it hits you with a huge emotional wallop.
with a scene in which Edith sees the recorded sight and sound of her grown-up daughter (Lois Chiles) and a granddaughter she didn't know she had. It's a devastating effect.
Although the ending is not a conventionally happy one, philosophically speaking, it is optimistic, though in a particularly tough-minded way.
During the film's three hours and particularly during the second half, Wenders occasionally resorts to platitudes to make his points, but the overall development of the film is extremely sophisticated and deeply felt.
UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD
Trans Pacific Films
A Road Movies Film Production, Argos Films, Village Roadshow production
Director Wim Wenders
Producer Jonathan Taplin
Exec. producer (U.S. and Japan)Anatole Dauman
Producers Anatole Dauman, Jonathan Taplin
Screenplay Peter Carey, Wim Wenders
Based on an original idea by Wim Wenders,
Solveig Dommartin
Director of photography Robby Muller
Picture and music editor Peter Przygodda
Production design, futuristic objectsThierry
Flamand
Production designer for Australia Sally Campbell
High Definition Video designer Sean Naughton
Musical score Graeme Revell
Color/Dolby
Cast:
Claire Tourneur Solveig Dommartin
Trevor McPhee/Sam Farber William Hurt
Eugene Fitzpatrick Sam Neill
Henry Farber Max von Sydow
Edith Farber Jeanne Moreau
Philip Winter Rudiger Vogler
Running time -- 179 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 9/11/1991
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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