BEYOND THE CLOUDS A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ***
Michelangelo Antonioni and Wim Wenders's BEYOND THE CLOUDS, which was made in 1995, is just now getting its United States release. A loose collection of slow and pretentious stories, the film has such flowery dialog that it can be laughably silly. ("You're the tree that eats it's own fruit," one would-be lover, played by Inés Sastre, uses as a come-on line to a mysterious woman, played by Irène Jacob.)
But this haunting series of tales about unsuccessful searches for love has a remarkable visual poetry that draws in the viewer. With frequent full-frontal nudity, the film is also unabashedly sensual, even if the lovers are uniformly unhappy.
The stories are glued together with the character of a director, played by John Malkovich, who appears to be in a post-film funk after wrapping up his last movie. He wanders through the various stories, taking part in one in which he gets to make love with a gorgeous woman (Sophie Marceau) who stabbed her father 12 times. The director muses on the importance of that exact number. It's a film like that.
The first story concerns a handsome young man, Silvano (Kim Rossi Stuart), who experiences love at first site with a long-legged beauty named Carmen (Inés Sastre). These actors are given the toughest lines to say with conviction. ("I am enslaved by your silence," Silvano tells Carmen. Later, she remarks to him, "I can still smell the scent of your skin and your words.") The night that they meet she changes to something sexy and lies waiting in her room for him, but, since he never shows up, she leaves town the next day. When they meet again a couple of years later, he still can't quite bring himself to follow through. This time he does go to her room, but he becomes the ultimate tease as he repeatedly brings his lips and hands within millimeters of her naked flesh without ever touching her. So much for that story.
Other melancholic vignettes include one about a woman (Fanny Ardant) whose husband (Peter Weller) is having trouble breaking off an affair and another in which a wife has left suddenly, taking most of the furniture.
This strangely intriguing film is set in a cold, bleak, off-season Europe, full of gloomy gray skies, heavy fog, rain and thunder. A slightly erotic and decidedly offbeat movie, BEYOND THE CLOUDS has a strong attraction that is hard to put into words. A frustrating film, it is simultaneously bizarrely fascinating and soporifically unsatisfying.
BEYOND THE CLOUDS runs 1:53. The film is in English, Italian and French, with English subtitles. It is not rated but would be at least an R for nudity, sex and language. It would be acceptable for mature high school students.
The film is playing in limited release in the United States now. In the San Jose area, it is currently showing at the Camera 3.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
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