Sky over the desert (film)

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Movie
German title Sky over the desert
Original title The Sheltering Sky
Country of production UK , Italy
original language English , French
Publishing year 1990
length 140 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Bernardo Bertolucci
script Paul Bowles
Mark Peploe
production Jeremy Thomas
William Aldrich
music Ryuichi Sakamoto
Richard Horowitz
camera Vittorio Storaro
cut Gabriella Cristiani
occupation

Sky over the desert (Original title: The Sheltering Sky) is a British-Italian drama by Bernardo Bertolucci from 1990 based on the novel by Paul Bowles . It is about a couple who leave the values ​​of Western culture behind and lose themselves in the encounter with North African cultures and landscapes.

action

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Three wealthy Americans, the artist couple Port and Kit Moresby and their companion George Tunner, traveled from New York to Tangier in 1947 in order to cross the Sahara from there . Tired of western civilization and the moderate success of their artistic endeavors, Kit and Port seek to escape the emptiness of their lives and their marriage. On arrival, Kit emphasizes that she and Port are travelers and not tourists: "On arrival, tourists think about the return journey home, the traveler may not return."

After an argument with Kit, Port visits a Berber prostitute that night, who tries to steal his wallet. After he has recovered them, she incites some men on him so that he has to flee. Port is drawn deeper inland, Kit and Tunner follow him. At times he travels in the car with the English tourists Mrs. Lyle and her son Eric, while Kit and Tunner take the train and, arriving earlier, sleep together in the hotel. The relationship between the three friends is becoming increasingly strained, while the travel conditions are getting worse. Port succeeds in choosing a different travel destination with his wife than Tunner, but at the same time his passport is stolen and he falls ill with typhus. Yet they travel to an even more remote place. Port dies an agonizing death in a fort of the French Foreign Legion in the middle of the desert, where Kit looks after him to the last. Without a word, Kit joins a passing Bedouin caravan. One of the Bedouins falls in love with the beautiful woman and hides her from his wives in a roof hut in his home village in Niger ; the two have repeated passionate intercourse. One day the local women discover the hiding place and drive Kit out of the village. Kit finally finds himself exhausted in Tangier. Tunner is notified of her arrival and is looking for her; however, she fled to the streets of Tangier in time.

Emergence

After the novel was published in 1949, the film rights were soon sold; Robert Aldrich owned it for over 30 years until his death in 1983 without even realizing it. In 1986 they were offered to Bertolucci. When casting the leading roles, he initially thought of Melanie Griffith and William Hurt . Filming in Morocco and Algeria lasted 16 weeks. Several contributors fell ill under the tiring conditions. Two million flies were imported from Italy to be released in some scenes. However, the flies did not survive the demanding climate and had to be replaced by local residents. The author Paul Bowles can be seen as the narrator in a café at the beginning and at the end of the film.

Emptiness and desert

Ports and Kits Departure is a spiritual journey with the aim of finding yourself. "As so often with Bertolucci, there are unstable figures, undecided and almost devotedly ready to be devoured by the circumstances in which they get caught." last part of the film kit alone. She may find “what Port may have been looking for: the happiness of being destroyed, stammering lust, release from oneself, the delirium of free fall.” The desert is an empty projection surface that is ascribed different meanings. At one time it is a symbol of the characters' inner emptiness, another time the emptiness of the desert is a metaphor for the journey into the self or a metonymy for the thought of separation that hovers over the marriage of the two main characters. As the story progresses, the desert becomes more and more beautiful and huge. Bertolucci revealed that he wanted to make up for the enormous misery in Africa with outbursts of beauty.

Reviews

The reviews were mixed in Europe as in the USA; they mainly revolved around the question of whether the characters from the novel are psychologically adequately represented in the film adaptation. In the novel, a wife becomes a sex slave who loses her identity, while Bertolucci's sensual narrative frees her and rediscovers her sexuality. Port's personality, too, a vulnerable, modest intellectual for Bowles, has transformed Bertolucci into a smug, arrogant man. The script fails to deal with the subject of the novel, fails to grasp the true nature of the characters, touches on the subjects instead of delving into them, and question after question remains unanswered. One criticism was more positive that the “fascinatingly ambiguous” film did not convey any preconceived statements to its audience, that one could project one's own dreams into the film.

The characters are bores who don't care, and the film is as apathetic as they are, a failed attempt to portray existential fear. The exquisite soundtrack was praised for its moving and operatic power. Bertolucci offers delicious, splendidly photographed images, as is usual for his films, and this is picturesque, an “overwhelming visual experience” that shows the sensual liveliness of North African cities. Seductive sensuality lies above everything. But it was also said that the longer travel shots were breathtaking at the beginning, but overwhelmed in the long run. Malkovich and Winger played second fiddle after the landscape, Winger only stared holes into the Sahara sky, while Malkovich was more energetic.

According to epd Film , the true-to-original film adaptation of the ambiguous novel of Africa shows both the beauty, the misery and the dirt. "Bertolucci has largely succeeded in keeping the many abysses open and making the gap between reality and projection visible." He achieves this through alienating narrative techniques that unfortunately lose their effectiveness in the last part as soon as Port dies because the different levels of perception would have bundled in it. With the kits immersed among the Bedouins, the film becomes a folkloric mood picture. For Zoom , the result is ambiguous. Bertolucci creates a dense atmosphere, and the landscape shots pull the audience in so that one can lose oneself in them. Unfortunately, the characters are not gripping and leave the audience indifferent. The Americans are only caricatures and Tunner remains an imprecise figure. And while Winger has a "bitter intensity" , Malkovich plays hard . In a review, Urs Jenny said in the mirror that the sky over the desert is an intimate, but not a small film. The refined, morbid, stimulating climate from Bertolucci's earlier films unfolds here, as does the visual ambiguity. He draws Winger and Malkovich “into areas of acting where the nerves are painfully exposed.” And the Heyne Film Lexicon judged: “How Bertolucci stages the slow extinction of personality through elementary survival reflexes is determined by the mighty natural spectacle of the desert. A goosebumps film in the blazing desert sun, of a very cruel, bizarre-melancholy beauty. "

Awards (selection)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for sky over the desert . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2009 (PDF; test number: 64 719 V).
  2. ↑ a b c d Dirk Manthey, Jörg Altendorf, Willy Loderhose (eds.): The large film lexicon. All top films from A-Z . Second edition, revised and expanded new edition. Volume III (H-L). Verlagsgruppe Milchstraße, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-89324-126-4 , p. 1316 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Greg Changnon In: Frank N. Magill (Ed.): Magill's Cinema Annual 1991. Salem Press, Pasadena 1991, ISBN 0-89356-410-9 , pp. 328-331.
  4. ↑ The mirror. No. 1/1990, January 1, 1990, pp. 148-149.
  5. ↑ a b c d e Claretta Micheletti Tonetti: Bernardo Bertolucci. The cinema of ambiguity. Twayne Publishers, New York 1995, ISBN 0-8057-9313-5 , pp. 231-232.
  6. ^ A b c d e f The Motion Picture Guide 1991. Annual. Baseline, New York 1991, ISBN 0-918432-92-8 , p. 153.
  7. ↑ a b c d Urs Jenny: Phantom Africa. In: Der Spiegel. No. 43/1990, October 22, 1990, pp. 276-278.
  8. ↑ a b c d Reclam's film guide. Philipp Reclam jr., Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-15-010389-4 , p. 756.
  9. ↑ The Chronicle of the Film. Chronik Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich 1994, p. 567.
  10. ↑ Verena Lueken In: epd film. No. 11/1990, p. 30.
  11. ↑ Franz Ulrich In: Zoom. No. 22/1990, pp. 7-9.
  12. ^ Heyne Film Lexicon.