Jusqu'au bout du monde

I agree with the comments made earlier concerning the denouement but that's only a disappointment if you look at the movie literally instead of figuratively. 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. He has succeeded. At the end of "The End of The World", we finally see it as we should all see the Earth.

The characters represent different ideologies of the different countries they're from and Wenders uses this to develop the plot.

These "countries" are trying to seize control of one man's vision and a source of power. However, they soon find out that not one of them can control the outcome of the movie.

The movie is Wender's commentary on global politics and socioeconomics. He portrays the world in a flurry of action from a European car chase to a U.S.A in recession, to a dichotomized Japan, and to an isolated Australia. It is an accurate depiction of the world we are living in now because that is how the movie was filmed - out in the streets of the real world circa the end of the 20th century which enhances the theme of the movie.

If you watch this movie you will believe you are living at "The End of the World". The movie is even better NOW then when it first came out. It's been 13 years since the first showing and I'm 28. Being a teenager, the sci-fi, action, fast-pace and the heroine's romance with William Hurt held my attention but to truly appreciate the WHOLE MOVIE you have to get past the juvenile/pop culture themes.

Being a woman, I identified with the heroine and the way she acts at the end of the movie and I think you will, too. The men will relate to the narrator because they tend to distance themselves from what's really going on in this movie and "cut to the chase". Overall, the movie is good for the whole family to watch except for one nude scene.

This "summary" took me awhile to write but as I went through the process of analyzing the movie from memory it became easier and easier as the film's key scenes flashed into my head. This only proves how powerful and clear Wenders' vision is as a director.

Set in 1999, a woman (Solveig Dommartin) has a car accident with some bank robbers, who enlist her help to take the bank money to a drop in Paris. On the way she runs into another fugitive from the law (William Hurt), an American who is being chased by the CIA.

Wenders realized the film would be too long for the commercial distribution, so he kept control of the unedited film rather than surrendering it to distributors. 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. If it were any longer, it would definitely need to be broken up into parts. It is a bit confusing, and definitely strange. This is science fiction, but not your typical kind. Really more off the wall, artistically sci-fi, like "Alphaville".

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.

Wenders takes the time to take us to another place that is right beside where you are now, whether you know it or not. Beautifully shot and scored, the movie rewards those that allow it to unfold rather than showing you the plot in the first 15 minutes. With an emphasis on personal emotions rather than "screen presence", the actors reveal much about us all- no super-heroes here.

Granted it is a long film by "American" standards but who can say how long a film should be? I felt transported to the times & places Wenders takes us, to me this makes a successful film regardless of its length. The storyline is well crafted and the music editing is brilliant; when I hear the music today I think of the film and not the bands that performed it.

William Hurt has a role (finally) that suits his personality. The pairing of Jeanne Moreau and Max Van Sydow is brilliant. Definitely a movie that should be seen at least once in your lifetime.

There are so many things to love about this film, starting with all of the places it takes us to and how beautifully they're captured. My goodness, it's gorgeous at times. There's also a wonderful little lookahead to technology of the future; though it's only set 8 years later, in 1999, there are all sorts of advances shown that are fun to compare to how things really turned out, such as the video phones, the Russian surveillance program with the animation of a bear that informs the user "I'm searching," and what Max von Sydow is cooking up in the desert. The soundtrack is comprised of great songs from an all-star list of bands from the period, and they fit the mood of the film perfectly. The film has got an apocalyptic feeling to it, and yet the story is playful and light, because the focus is on stolen money and chase that goes all over the world in the first half. As Solveig Dommartin's character puts it, "If it was the end of the world, why shouldn't we go down laughing?"

I confess that for most of the runtime I thought this would have been better either as a drama/chase focused on the threat of nuclear Armageddon, or as a science fiction film about the technology of extracting images out of our brains, which is what we see in the second half, but not both. Aside from making the film god-awful long, it wasn't clear how these two things were really connected, that is, until the final half hour or so. Wenders seems to be saying that the threat to humanity may not actually be what everyone was worried about at the time, nuclear war (or in this case, a catastrophic nuclear accident), it may be people become addicted to technology, and having it steal their souls. It was absolutely remarkable to see the characters staring down bleary-eyed into their devices, when 30 years later we've all ended up staring down into our phones. What was a wonderfully organic community out in the Australian outback, with time for dancing and music amidst all of the research, becomes fractured, with isolated individuals caring more about their devices than others. I absolutely loved this aspect of the film.

While it had a lot going for it, so much so that I might have rated it a little higher, I also struggled with it. Four hours and 47 minutes is a lot, and the film drags at times. In the first half it suffers from escape sequences that seem hokey in their conception and then not all that well acted, and in the second half, it just lags. I've liked William Hurt elsewhere, but did not like him at all here; I thought his performance was weak from beginning to end. Solveig Dommartin is just barely passable; while she brings a certain soul to the role and is easy on the eyes to say the least, she delivers her lines with very little range. Thank goodness for Max von Sydow and Jeanne Moreau, who were such a joy to see. Maybe I'm being too hard on the film or maybe I would have liked the three hour theatrical release that Wenders dismissed as the "Reader's Digest" version better, I don't know. It's got lots of moments that are 5 star and overall it's definitely worth seeing, but I wouldn't recommend it without reservations.