Until the End of the World

It was a real movie marathon this weekend. Another film I screened was the full five-hour director's cut of Wim Wenders's "Until the End of the World".

The story follows a cast of characters on a trip around the world, wandering from continent to continent, trying to find their purpose in life. It begins as a meditation on love and our place in the world and winds up being a story about the nature of dreams and our own psyche.

I greatly enjoyed the two-hour American cut of the film; the director's cut (which is actually three feature-length films) doesn't significantly change the story, but adds more depth to the different stories. It only starts dragging in Part Three, after the troupe gets stuck in Australia, isolated from the rest of the world due to a nuclear explosion in space set off by the US government (don't ask) - he doesn't seem to have much to do with the minor characters in this part of the movie. (Watching the five-hour version of the movie reminds me of what it was like to see the miniseries version of Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander" after seeing the feature length version a couple of times.)

I'm glad I saw it, but don't think I'll watch it again soon.