Until the End of the World (1991)

Please don't spend money on this.

i must have seen a different film!!

From my favorite movies..

Better Late Then Never

I just wanted to express how much I enjoyed this film. I watched the almost 5 hour directors cut of this film for the first time on August 2017. I enjoyed the film so much that I lost track of time and was totally surprised that 280 min. had passed (4 hrs 40 min). I had never heard of Director Wim Wenders and I must say that I am now a fan. I am looking forward to viewing more of his films! For those of you that have read bad reviews for this film, ignore them. Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. Great Music, Characters, Acting and Story. Definitely one of my new favorites!

How did William Hurt's gas pain ever get cast in movies? The female lead must be related to Wenders b/c she can't act, either. Sam Neill walks around in a daze and his narration is a sure sign of a failed movie. There is interesting photography here but barely a trace of a plot. It's fitting that a movie so pretentious, bloated and dull would feature a soundtrack that includes U2, R.E.M. and Depeche Mode, among others. Credit where it's due - whatsername takes her clothes off just often enough to keep things interesting. If I had paid money to see this in a theatre I would never again pay to see another Wenders movie and I'd make it my goal on social media to convince others to follow my lead. He makes Terrence Malick look like Tony Scott by comparison. I am shocked anyone would give this git five bucks to film a movie. He doesn't have a clue.

I guess the question you have to ask yourself if considering taking on this film is, Do I want to spend almost 5 hours of my life on this? The conception of the film is ambitious and brilliant, it covers a huge amount of ground. It's visually stunning, and the choice of music and its melding with scenes and moods is inspired - especially Ray Davies' 'Thank You for the Days' whenever it appears. But does the film actually work? Unfortunately not. And the main reason for this, for a native English speaker, is that we have non-native speakers of English being directed by a non-native speaker of English. Although novelist Peter Carey had a hand in the writing, he obviously didn't help Wenders with the directing. So many of the lines are badly delivered, and much of the acting is wooden. Even actors of the stature of Jeanne Moreau and Max von Sydow can't deliver lines in English without good direction. Maybe it all sounded good to Wim, but sorry Wim, it doesn't work for Anglophones. Even William Hurt's and Sam Neill's lines often fall flat. If you speak German, try the German version - it sounded better to me. Otherwise, why not spend the time watching 'Wings of Desire' TWICE, or watch three of Wenders' great early films? They are much more rewarding.

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. etc. etc.4th: I think it's a bit of a stretch to call this "science fiction". Even more so to call it "cyberpunk". I just have trouble believing that just because you incorporate a few elements of sci-fi and film-noir detective genres in a near-future setting, it is just automatically cyberpunk. And even just to call it science fiction... 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. likewise, the "device" is little more than a generic "MacGuffin" for most of the film, and when they finally do get into it, it is with the shallowest, most cursory glossing over of any interesting exploration of the concepts, remaining little more than a MacGuffin still; a random crux for some ridiculous, muddled new-age psycho-babble philosophical wanking, which doesn't really go anywhere or last very long; just seems to be a random way of ending that part of the film. Anyway, if you really were interested in checking out some real sci-fi about topics such as these, you could so easily do SOOO much better, so don't get roped into watching this just because the sci-fi aspect sounds interesting. about the only interesting thing in that regard is that they somehow managed to predict modern automobile sat-nav units pretty much exactly!! So, all that out of the way, this movie is obviously VERY long. I am almost curious that a better edited version could be more interesting, but I don't really see how that's possible. It's the content, not the length, that failed to keep my interest. I did find it pretty interesting in the beginning, enjoyed the bit in Japan, and the Australia where most of the rest of the film took place seemed remarkably realistic and down to earth compared to typical depictions, so that was somewhat interesting.But in general it just wandered nowhere so aimlessly... 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... but shockingly none of that is in evidence here! about all this albatross has going for it is a few interesting characters, a few pretty good minor actors, and a rather cute, intriguing leading lady, but even that wasn't nearly enough to carry it past the first two hours.The use of various languages could have been interesting, but I just found it jarring and unnatural. While it seems that many of the actors were pretty gifted in at least one language, they end up speaking a lot in other languages, particularly English, in which their performance seemed severely curtailed. Absurdly enough, the well established American actors actually tend to give some of the most wooden, hokey, unbelievable deliveries in English on here! And i generally do like them in other films I've seen.It's all pretty inexplicable. I can't find myself believing most of what takes place in this film. Other reviews on IMDb have pointed out a few of the ridiculous plot holes and pointlessly unrealistic plot twists, and I'm not much inspired to suffer remembering it to point out more; there are PLENTY.But even when you ignore these technical blunders, the main dramatic story line just makes no sense to me whatsoever. Why does she suddenly fall in love with some random guy just because she runs into him on her little adventure, gives him a ride, and he steals some of her money? i certainly see no chemistry or connection whatsoever between them at that point; it's completely out of nowhere. And she's instantly completely obsessed with him and it becomes her life-consuming mission to stalk him literally to the ends of the earth, not even to get back at him, but to have sex with him and save him from... she has no clue what from? As stupidly as I have seen some women behave, I can not believe that she would keep this up after risking her life only to be used, stolen from again, and ditched the first SEVERAL TIMES! And why the heck would he keep doing this and conceal the device and his motives completely from her, when it turns out later he really is such a nice guy? So there you have it, pretty consistently horrendous acting, not much special visually, a tangled, moth eaten plot that drags on forever going nowhere for no particular reason, fairly uninteresting characters who make no sense, self-inconsistencies and loose threads out the wazoo, and not really that much in the music department as far as I'm concerned. A huge disappointment from the director of one of my very favoritest movies ever! What a drag.I'm not sure what to recommend as a much better, alternative to this film with relatable themes or elements, but definitely check out "Wings of Desire", and maybe some appealing works by Kieslowski, Tarkovsky, Wong Kar-wai, maybe even Fellini... Even if you like this film, believe me, you CAN do MUCH better, so keep looking!