Change Your Image
palomnik
Reviews
Bis ans Ende der Welt (1991)
A sensuously beautiful cyberpunky art road film with a great soundtrack
I find this film to be beyond description - in some ways it is dated - the car map system looked cool when nobody had GPS. It reflects the visions of the cyberpunk literature and cultural movements of the late '80s and early '90s, which has some relevance, but has morphed beyond recognition.
In actual 1999, I found a great prophetic irony in the opening lines: "1999 was the year the Indian Nuclear Satellite went out of control. No one knew where it might land. It soared above the ozone layer like a lethal bird of prey. The whole world was alarmed..."
I rewrote them to reflect the actual reality: 1999 was the year the dot com and Y2K bug hype went out of control. No one knew where it might end. It soared above our corporate servers and venture-capital-burn-rate like a lethal bird of prey. 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. Of course I have to give it extra points just for spending extra time in one of my favorite world-class bars - the Tosca.
Even though this is a cyberpunk sci-fi film, and an art film and a road film, it manages ultimately to be introspectively psychological (as do all Wenders films that I have seen so far). I cannot watch this movie without shedding at least a tear for the beautiful and talented Solveig Dommarten, whose career and life were cut far too short. I see other reviews talking about the lack of story. This movie is better watched as painting - the title or theme may be short, but it unfolds in the tasting of the experience of the images, some of which were pretty striking in 1991. I thought the theatrical release was pretty good at the time, but if you can, slow down and watch the 5 hour trilogy version (a third at a time).
Crime and Punishment (1998)
A wretched hack unrecognizable as Dostoyevsky
The key parts of Dostoyevsky's novel are either missing, or are so badly twisted, that I found myself laughing hysterically throughout this movie. There were a couple of good casting choices, and some good sets, but otherwise, it is a complete wash. This movie completely misses the points of Dostoyevsky, but it isn't too clear on it's Russian setting either. The poor cast is made to deliver the English dialog with bad Russian accents. The movie opens with Raskolnikov trying to assassinate Tsar Nicholas II and Tsaritsa Alexandra as they are leaving a church! (only 60 years too soon and completely destroys the subsequent plot assumptions). Key scenes such as Sonia's Father's speech to Raskolnikov (in which is contained the main theme of the work) are gone. What is meant to be a scene in which Raskolnikov and Sonia experience profound repentance, grace and forgiveness during the reading of the gospel story of Lazarus, is twisted: Sonia reads one sentence of the Gospel (tossing aside the theme), and then it turns into a big kiss moment instead. Avoid this one like the plague!