Bis ans Ende der Welt

Plot synopsis:
In late 1999, an orbiting Indian nuclear satellite is out of control and predicted to re-enter the atmosphere, threatening unknown populated areas of the Earth. Mass populations trying to flee the likely impact sites cause a worldwide panic. Caught in a traffic jam and suffering from boredom, Claire Tourneur escapes the highway congestion by taking a side road. When she gets into a car crash with a pair of bank robbers, they enlist her to carry their stolen cash to Paris. Along the way, she meets a man being pursued by an armed party who introduces himself as Trevor McPhee, and allows him to travel to Paris with her. After reaching the house of her estranged lover, Eugene, Claire discovers that Trevor has stolen some of the money.
Claire then travels to Berlin and hires missing persons detective Phillip Winter to help her find Trevor through tracking his passport and credit card — he agrees to help when he finds out Trevor has a substantial bounty on his head. However, when Claire meets Trevor for lunch, she betrays Winter and attempts to escape with Trevor. Winter catches the two making love in a motel room, after which Trevor handcuffs them to the bed and escapes with more of Claire's money. Winter, Claire and Eugene meet in Moscow to continue the search, and find out from Moscow bounty hunters that Trevor is actually Sam Farber, wanted for stealing the prototype of a secret research project. Multiple government agencies and freelance bounty hunters are chasing him to recover the device. Winter quits the job, intimidated by the even larger bounty on Sam's head, but Eugene buys a tracking computer to help Claire. However, when the computer finds Sam's location, she leaves Eugene while she thinks he is sleeping.
Following Sam on the Trans-Siberian Railway, she travels through China and reaches Japan, where she rescues Winter from a botched capture attempt at a capsule hotel. She finds Sam at a pachinko parlor rapidly losing his eyesight, and buys them train tickets to a random mountain inn. There, Sam reveals that the stolen prototype belongs to his father, Henry Farber and is a device for recording and translating brain impulses. He has been recording places and people around the world for his blind mother, Edith Jeanne Moreau, but the recordings are exhausting his eyes. After the innkeeper heals Sam's eyes, he and Claire fly to San Francisco to take more recordings before heading to the Australian outback, where his father's laboratory is.
Eugene, who had traveled to Japan only to be abandoned by Claire once again, teams up with Winter to capture Sam. Along with the bank robbers, they travel to Central Australia, but Eugene fights Sam upon finding him, causing both to get arrested. When Winter bails them out, they discover that the bag containing the camera was taken from Claire while she was drugged with sleeping pills. However, the bag also contains the original tracker attached to Claire's bank money, which the bank robbers can trace. Claire and Sam take off in a small airplane to retrieve the camera.
When the Indian nuclear satellite is shot down by the US government, the resulting Nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NEMP) effect wipes out all unshielded electronics worldwide. Claire and Sam are forced to land the plane when the engine quits. They walk across the desert until they find the camera with the bounty hunter Burt. Reuniting with Eugene, Winter and the bank robbers, they travel in hand-cranked diesel-powered jeeps to the lab, which is sheltered in a massive cave.
Henry tries to synchronize the camera with Sam's memory in order to transmit clean images to Edith's brain, but Sam is injured and too tired to perform well. After father and son come to blows, Claire tries the experiment with her recordings to phenomenal success. It is revealed that Henry wishes to apply the technology to dream retrieval in order to win a Nobel Prize. However, Henry pushes too hard and Edith eventually dies of exhaustion. Eugene's writer's block seems to have been cured and he begins composing on an antique typewriter.
After Edith's death, Henry begins working on how to record human dreams. The Aborigines disagree with his goals and abandon him, so he experiments on himself, Claire, and Sam. They eventually become addicted to viewing their dreams on portable video screens. Eugene finds Claire curled up in a rock crevasse glued to her screen and takes her back to the village, driving her into painful withdrawal when he refuses to replace the batteries for her screen. He finishes the novel about her adventure and gives it to her, curing her of "the disease of images." Meanwhile, Sam wanders into the rocky desert labyrinths with his own screen and is ultimately rescued by the Aborigines. Henry is taken by the CIA while lying in the laboratory's dream-recording chair. Eugene and Claire leave the village together but break up for good. Later, Claire becomes an astronaut and spends her 30th birthday as an ecological observer, orbiting in a space station. Eugene, Winter and the bank robbers celebrate with her by singing "Happy Birthday" over a video fax.

Tags: psychedelic, sci-fi

Review:
Eugene (Neill) is to me the central character, and any good viewing of the movie depends on understanding how he fits in as more than a side character caught up in a great chase.
A truly remarkable and excellent film that got a bad first screening because no distributor had the guts to put out a 5 hour movie.
I saw it at the National Film Theatre in London years ago, expecting to find the length a serious problem but knowing that I might not get another chance.As it turned out there were two intervals and the fact that it took a whole afternoon added to the enjoyment...
I have only seen the full-length 280-minute "trilogy" version of this film (at the 2001 USA Film Festival in Dallas), and I honestly cannot identify any sequences that could be cut without seriously compromising the flow of the story.This film works so well on so many different levels -- an adventure, a love story, a question of ethics and technology, life and death, love and family, but mostly it explores the question, "how far must we travel (or how long must we sit in the theater) to find that which we seek, and what exactly is it we're seeking anyway"?Yes, 4-1/2 hours is a long time to sit still (although, with two intermissions it's not all that bad), but for those of us who enjoy a good film that's not made from a pat formula of committee-designed ingredients in strictly regulated proportions, it's worth every minute..
Wim Wenders sets a touching love story within the plot of a sci-fi cat&mouse pursuit around the world.
Who got bored by Wenders before will be pleasantly surprised, although one should be able to cherish a long, slow movie.
Wenders shows us a completely technological world, which he then confronts with the "good old way" of life.
On the whole, I would agree with many other Imdb user comments (too long, incoherent, two movies in one, excellent soundtrack, etc.) That was before I saw the _whole_ movie.I had been watching the 158-minute American version and the 179-minute European version (almost indistinguishable) I had heard about the 280-minute "Trilogy" version 4 or 5 years ago when it was screened at the American Cinemateque (sp?) and when I read that it was to be screened again Jan 14 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, I figured that a 5-hour (with 2 10-min.
All this, and I've only seen the edited version, not the 5-hour director's cut, which I hope someday will be released on DVD.Wenders has a different way of working - he develops the dialog, and even the plot (so the story goes), as the film is being shot.
He then wove the resulting music into the script.Every 6 months or so I'm amazed by some bit of news in real life that was actually telegraphed by the film, years ago.
Like all of Wenders' films, it is exactly a half-hour too long, but like most of his work, it just manages to redeem itself.
Wenders' near five hour film won its long delayed tribute this afternoon as a MoMA audience saw a superb technical and aesthetic tour de force.
Shining through past his visionary use of animation (including dream-realization astonishingly close to contemporary science), his compassionate eye for character, his skill at keeping a sophisticated audience wanting to know what happens next, his unerring ear for the right music, is a quality of benevolence which, while not denying the existence of evil, gives it no purchase.And then there are the actors, who give skillful voice to ideas while providing breadth and nuance to the thousand odd tasks they are given.
He also described exhausting the still experimental Japanese digital technology (and technologists) which enabled him to create the film's absorbing dreamscapes.Very rewarding, too, seeing one of our great filmmakers get the standing ovation appropriate to his work on "Until the End of the World.".
It is so good I'm going to look for the CD!Overall impression: A must view for anyone not completely addicted to or debased by the usual safe, boring, "me to" that passes for film out of Hollywood..
Claire pursues him across the Russia, America and Germany (with a detective and ex-boyfriend in tow) to find his quest is more emotional than it is criminal.Wim Wenders  simply a great director, visionary in his own way.
On top of that Newman suggested this was road movie meets the apocalypse and I do love speculative fiction and being vaguely aware of Wim Wenders who did a strange twist on the serial killer thriller genre THE GOALKEEPERS FEAR OF THE PENALTY .
I'm not defending the rubbish that Michael Bay and the rest of Hollywood churn out but there comes a point where the average audience member has had enough of slow moving brooding introspection and hope the film ends before the world does Apart from having a severe lack of anything to hold the interest of the audience there's a painfully unrealistic depiction of the very near future .
The moody, scenic, slow-building style is quintessential Wenders, and it's possibly his finest work.But once we reach the promised "end of the world", in the Australian outback, the film takes a sharp left turn into third-rate psychodrama and ultimately comes unglued, with a long, dragging denouement that should have been cut entirely.
after great movies like Wings of Desire and Goalkeeper's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, for instance, Wenders decided to TRASH his whole reputation with a god-awful, cornball, cheesy, Sprockets, ridiculous (f)artsy nonsense.The dramatic premise of a satellite threatening the world is upended by a ridiculously implausible and synthetic scenario.
Nothing in this movie feels real or possible, and the Euro-trash clichés, effete noir ideas, and absurd storyline makes it a risible piece of bad art.It feels like a very long bad 1980s music video for Madonna or Dick Tracy movie, with Euro-Sprockets coming at you from every direction.Only the music is good..
Bis ans Ende der Welt (1991) Directed by Wim Wenders is a bizarre combination of science fiction, travelogue, and picaresque road movie.
It's hard to believe that a great director like Wim Wenders could squander the talents of William Hurt (Sam), Jeanne Moreau, and Max von Sydow in a unwittingly laughable mess such as this.
The only modestly redeeming features of this film are some computer-generated images that simulate computer- generated images, some beautiful--if barren-- Australian scenery, and the female lead, Solveig Dommartin (Claire), who is interesting in a unique way, and doesn't look like a standard issue international film star.In the US version of the film, some plot lines appear suddenly, and some characters disappear just as suddenly.
Wim Wenders took another chance to bore the audience.In his almost three hour opus Wenders does again try to solve all the problems of the world.A number of people travel across the globe in order to search for someone or something: a love, a fine and a camera enabling to see ones dreams.
Director Wim Wenders is more interested in creating a near-futurist world which isn't that visually compelling anyways.
1st: I have only watched the long(est) version of this movie once.2nd: Wenders' "Wings of Desire" (Der Himmel über Berlin) is pretty much literally my favorite movie ever.3rd: I have LOVED plenty of films that are any combination of long, abstract, meandering, foreign, low on action or even plot, with supposedly realistic, down to earth characters, etc.
the supposed overall premise that the world could end due to a nuclear satellite destabilizing is not actually particularly science fiction (nor even hardly realistically scientifically plausible) but it's pretty much completely ignored for the entire movie, so what does it matter.
I doubt it's true, but I really got the feel that they were just making this up as they went along past the initial setup, and really could not figure out where to take it without writing around in circles, into corners, through ridiculous plot-holes, trailing loose ends all along the way.Of course, this wouldn't be so bad considering Wenders' penchant for stunning, timeless cinematography, directing, pacing, and phenomenally real, alive, emotionally transparent acting...
Wim Wenders over 5 hour globetrecking cyberpunk epic, is intended to be the ultimate road movie.
The world is closer to ending than it has ever been, which means its just a story on the news in the background, most people try to ignore.The first segment, in this three part film, is their chase cross country and continent, "A Dance Around The World", as the book about their lives is latter called.They begin in Italy, and go on to Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Bejing, Tokyo, San Francisco, and finally the Australlian Outback, our heroin Miriam discovers, that Hurt is wanted for a stolen piece of Government property, a device that records the experience of seeing and translates the information as images.
etc), this movie doesn't delve into it conversation wise, it's lets everything play out, at five hours it gives you the credit that you can work it out for yourself.It's really just a beautiful film to watch, that's much sweeter and gentler than most sci-fi, and more fascinating too because it doesn't shove its implications down your throat.Wim Wenders, got people like The Talking Heads, Can, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, U2, Nick Cave, and many many more, to make original songs for the soundtrack about the new millennium.
Despite its hefty run time, I thought Wenders was sensitive, to the changing dynamics of the future world, it's not dystopian and it's not Star Trek/Fifth Element Space Opera either, it occupies, a space, where simple good or bad, are no longer really relevant to discussion.At one point when everyone assumes the world has ended Sam Niel's character is playing in a small band with several Aboriginal neural scientists, a few french-bank robbers, a British bounty hunter, and some random strays who wandered into the Australian compound fearful of nuclear fallout, and they play a music that sounds like Australlian Blue Grass; Didgeridoo's and pianos, harmonica's, and trumpets, blending together to create something singular and new.
But this adventure, the satellite, the machine, the crash, it all occurred, so we could be here, at this moment, to create this music which would have never otherwise existed, right at the crest of the end of the world".Few sci-fi films are dedicated to power of music(that the characters play), words(that Sam Neil records for his novel), and images(of coming war, of the beauty of the world, and the contours of our own mind/dream/souls,etc).
To this day there is nothing that even comes close to artistically presenting the movement and evolution of civilised human lives as we live them in a futuristic sci-fi film format.Wim Wenders presented to the world his ability to see human relationships in a very real and advanced stage across the boundaries of society, culture and time.
As in his other movies like Paris, Texas, the backdrops become another character in the film.
Just like the title entails, Wenders was challenged to get the WHOLE world into his movie.
If you watch this movie you will believe you are living at "The End of the World".
William Hurt and Sam Neil doing their best, but no good actor can win within a movie of Herrn Wenders.
I've tried to steel myself and go back to watch Seven Samurai, because I know it's such a hugely important and influential movie, but I always end up chickening out, thinking that I'll just have the same reaction as last time, "Objectively, this is a very good movie -- but it's just not for me." Or maybe it was just a bad day for me to watch a Kurosawa film -- who knows.
I knew it was a Wim Wenders movie going in, but I was drawn to some other aspects: the soundtrack was made of contemporary music that was very appealing to me, I like Sam Neil a great deal, and I'd seen some good William Hurt movies (though, his occasional wooden acting was a bit of a turn off in others).
Maybe I like it so much because it reminds me of the kind of bizarre post-apocalyptic adventure that I might experience in my dreams.Until the End of the World is classified as a road movie, I suppose.
Though I generally do enjoy most art films -- even those considered to be impenetrable and slow -- Wim Wenders has always been a bit of a problem for me.
It just screams "Wim Wenders" to me -- a good idea with a great follow-through, spread out over several hours of glacially slow pacing.
However, if it is a human drama that your interested in, and a hopeful film that points out several science-fiction possibilities, then you'll love this movie.
So many science fiction ideas over the years eventually become realized and the possibility of the idea of restoring the sight to the blind and recording dreams via the visual cortex is downright compelling.I've seen this movie too many times to be unbiased in my opinion and easily state that it's in the top 5 films ever made.
I watched the almost 5 hour directors cut of this film for the first time on August 2017.
After the film's theatrical release, Wenders worked with multiple copies and, with Sam Neill, recording additional narration, completed a 280-minute version.
The longer cut, which Wenders regards as the definitive version of the film, unfolds as a trilogy and is presented in three parts (the titles appear three different times).The version I saw was around 150 minutes.
What can I say...this movie is a remarkable piece of work...perhaps Wenders' most watchable film.
The 150 minute theatrical version of the film was criticized for being overly ambitious, disjointed and underdeveloped, while the Director's cut not only fills in these blanks, it fleshes out this fascinating story about how we see the world around us, the search for identity within that world and our obsessive/destructive interface with technology as a means to process reality, both conscious and unconscious.
The sort of film that would have been greatly improved by a tighter budget.One central idea near the end was of people addicted to handheld computer games, but Wenders made the mistake of showing us the low-definition, haphazard and garish images they were looking at, and unless the people were also connected intravenously, they were a complete turnoff..
The story about machines getting in between the people and that good intentions in technology progress do not always end up on the positive side is what I like about this movie.
while Wim Wenders is not a director everyone can relate to, Ienjoy his movies very much, they are like real life, they demystify the actor into a truly believable person, in believable situations, even when the situations are not real.
Until the end of the world is the best Wenders movie I have seen to date, and while it is long, if you enjoy a movie about people, not about things going bang, then this is a movie you should see.
Occurring in 1999, when the Indian nuclear satellite has gone out of control (and no one knows where it's going to land), the movie focuses on Frenchwoman Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin) following American Sam Farber (William Hurt) all over the world.
I really don't have many complaints about the story, other than it felt like it trailed off in the end.This film looks neat, with quality photography and editing.
Acting is swell: I did get a kick out of watching William Hurt, Sam Niell, and Solveig Dommartin in their roles (and Max Von Sydow makes an appearance toward the end).
The whole world was alarmed...So there are some decently interesting science fiction aspects to this movie, but I would say that this is actually the ultimate art film as road movie.
Just see "Wings Of Desire" if you don't think Wenders is an art film director.
This movie FEELS like the end of the world..
Along the way she meets a man (William Hurt) who is being chased by some rather tough characters.From there the movie is a long series of travels from on continent to another picking up things that we think will be important to the story.
This too long with too much plot.I like Wenders style of taking characters and having the patience to develop their story rather then tell us everything them play it out.
The only reason why I kept any interest in this film is because it has one of the best soundtracks of any movie, ever, period.Now I read that there's a 5 hour version, which so many people (including, apparently Wenders himself, who calls the US release the "Readers Digest version") say is like a totally different film.
Wenders has made so many amazing films that are incredibly slow-paced, and this movie just didn't make coherent sense, that it's quite possible that the longer version may actually be the brilliant movie that I always thought was lurking under the mess of the original 178 minute US release.Where the hell can you see this puppy?
I happened to come across a download version of the film in three parts, each with it's own set of opening credits that amounted to nearly five hours of the director's cut.
I just finished watching the 4 hour and 36 minute version of this movie and want to say that it is incredible!
the three of them together, however, don't really make a lot :-) It's not surprising for a 4 hours and 40 minute long movie to get boring at times, and I can say this one was still not that boring.
I know a lot of people who don't get this film, but I don't get them.It's a straight forward story of a woman who is bored with her life looking for some excitement.
Wim Wenders & Robby Mueller at the EYE film museum for the Directors cut screening of Until The End of the World..