Movies - Until the End of the World

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	Movies - Until the End of the World

Until the End of the World (German title: Bis ans Ende der Welt) is a 1991 film by the German-born film director Wim Wenders; the screenplay was written by Wenders and Peter Carey, from a story by Wenders and Solveig Dommartin. An initial draft of the screenplay was written by American filmmaker Michael Almereyda. Wenders, whose career had been distinguished by his mastery of the road movie, had intended this as the Ultimate Road Movie.

Plot

The film takes place in the fall of 1999; there is an out of control nuclear satellite in orbit that is apt to reenter the atmosphere at any time, contaminating large areas of the earth. This has caused an increasing degree of disorder, with large numbers fleeing the likely impact sites. Amidst a traffic jam, the impatient and disconnected Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin) escapes the congestion by driving off the highway, is told by her Dashboard Computer System that she has left the Map Zone Database and is on her own, and subsequently has a couple of odd encounters; first with a couple of bank robbers (which leaves her privy to a large amount of cash and a promised cut of it) and a hitchhiker who's apparently being pursued by at least one armed party. Claire eventually discovers, after falling in love with the enigmatic fugitive, that the hitchiker is the son of a scientist who had absconded with the working prototype from a secret research project, and multiple government agencies, and some freelance bounty hunters, are attempting to recover it.

The prototype is a device for recording and translating brain impulses—a camera for the blind—and her hitchhiker is travelling the world, filming his widely-scattered family to show footage of them to his blind mother. The chase continues around the world, the nuclear satellite is shot down, causing an EMP effect that wipes out all unshielded electronics worldwide, and the characters wind up in a hidden cave in the Australian Outback, where the recordings are played back. After the death of the hitchhiker's mother, his scientist father discovers a way to use the device to record human dreams. Several of the central characters become addicted to viewing the playback of their own dreams, while Claire's estranged lover, a novelist, remains unaffected while he works on a novel about the adventure. It is this novel, ultimately, that rescues Claire from the throes of her addiction via the power of words.

Production, distribution, and reception

Over a decade in the making and developed partly from a series of discussions Wenders had with French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier (whose own 1980 film Deathwatch shares similar themes), Until the End of the World is Wenders' most ambitious film. Filmed in 15 cities across seven countries on four of the seven continents, it had a budget of approximately $23 million and was originally intended to be shot on 70mm and conclude its production and narrative in the African Congo, although available finances deemed these feats unfeasible. Wenders was also not granted clearance to film in China. As a solution, Wenders sent the film's star, Solveig Dommartin (his then-girlfriend), into China with a handheld digital camera, after principal photography wrapped. This footage is presented in the film as a "video fax" that Claire sends her estranged lover Gene subsequent to her trip across the Chinese mainland.

During post-production, Wenders had initially assembled a cut that exceeded eight hours in length. Contractual agreements bound Wenders to deliver an answer print not exceeding three hours in length. The final product as distributed in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere was 158 minutes.

To add to the (then) near-future look, at least one company, Sony, contributed prototypes of some of their planned new products for use in the film. The soundtrack is notable for Wenders asking various recording artists—U2, Talking Heads, R.E.M., Depeche Mode, Jane Siberry, etc.—for music to be used in the film; specifically for the music that they thought they would be making in 1999. The soundtrack itself was more successful than the film, and is generally regarded as one of the most important motion picture soundtracks of the 1990s.

Until the End of the World was poorly received in its initial theatrical release, emerging both a critical and commercial failure. In the United States, the film was released by Warner Bros. on December 25th, 1991 (in New York and Los Angeles, later expanding to other cities), and played on a small number of screens aided by almost no commercial advertising. At the U.S. box office, it grossed $752,856 and was generally panned by critics, although some did favorably review it (including Hal Hinson, of The Washington Post, and Vincent Canby of The New York Times). Critical reception was lukewarm in Europe and other markets as well. Wenders has subsequently disdained this version of his film, calling it the "Reader's Digest Version."

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