UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD. A prophetic science fiction epic

To fully enjoy “Until the End of the World”, amazing and unique film, you should cover the windows, turn off your phone, eliminate other distractions, and have… five free hours.

The action takes place in 1999. The world is under the threat of destruction: a damaged nuclear satellite is heading straight for Earth, but it is not known exactly when and where it will crash. After breaking up with her partner, Claire dives into a whirlwind of parties, drugs, casual sex, and travel. During a journey from Italy to France, she meets a duo of bank robbers who ask her to transport a suitcase of stolen money to Paris in exchange for a share of the loot. Claire also meets a fugitive named Trevor and helps him get to Paris, where she discovers that he has kept part of the money for himself. It turns out that Trevor’s real name is Sam, and there is a high bounty on his head. Fascinated by the mysterious fugitive, Claire decides to find him with the help of private detective Winter. Together, they follow Sam’s trail around the world, eventually ending up in Australia, where Sam’s father is working on a device that allows the blind to experience the visual sensations and dreams of others.

When Wim Wenders first traveled to Australia in the late ’70s, he thought the landscapes would be ideal for a science fiction film. However, he could only start this expensive production ten years later, following the financial success of his films “Paris, Texas” (1984) and “Wings of Desire” (1987). The total cost of “Until the End of the World” amounted to nearly $22 million (more than the combined budget of all Wenders’ previous works!). Filming based on a screenplay by Wenders and Australian writer Peter Carey took nearly six months in fifteen cities (including Berlin, Lisbon, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, and San Francisco) in seven countries on four continents (Europe, Asia, North America, Australia) – and it was only the producers’ objections that prevented Wenders from filming in the African Congo. The core crew consisted of a dozen people (actors, the director, and cinematographer Robby Müller), as local personnel were hired in each country.

Wenders managed to engage an international cast: Solveig Dommartin (Claire), William Hurt (Sam/Trevor), Sam Neill (Eugene), Jeanne Moreau (Edith), Max von Sydow (Henry), Chick Ortega (Chico), Eddy Mitchell (Raymond), Adelle Lutz (Makiko), Rüdiger Vogler (Winter), and Ernie Dingo (Burt). The dream sequences were developed over six months in the labs of NHK – the Japanese media consortium that, at the time, was the only one in the world with High Definition technology. Additionally, beyond hiring Graeme Revell to compose the music, Wenders asked his favorite musicians to write entirely new songs for the film (with the note that they should sound as if the artist imagines their work ten years into the future). Thus, the soundtrack features new tracks by Talking Heads, Can, Julee Cruise, R.E.M., Lou Reed, Crime and the City Solution, Elvis Costello, Depeche Mode, Nick Cave, and a new variant of U2’s “Until the End of the World.”

Wenders admitted that his desire to use all the songs affected the length of “Until the End of the World.” The rough cut of the film, edited with Peter Przygodda, lasted… 20 hours. Wenders was contractually obligated to create a film no longer than three hours but asked the producers to allow him to present a longer film divided into two parts. However, the sponsors were adamant and forced the preparation of two shortened versions: a 158-minute one for the American market and a 179-minute one for Europe. Wenders had to comply with the producers’ contract, although he called these versions “Reader’s Digest” films (a reference to the literary magazine known for publishing heavily abridged literary works). Secretly, however, he kept not only the original version of the film but also the negatives, allowing him to edit a director’s cut lasting 287 minutes. This version was released in 2014 and is the subject of this review.

Although only thirty-three years have passed since the film’s premiere, it is the kind of science fiction cinema that is rarely made today: slow-paced, intellectual, with a philosophical edge, aimed at patient and focused viewers without attention deficits (it’s hard to imagine that nearly five hours of screening would be endured in one sitting by, for instance, teenage TikTokers, and even harder to believe that they would understand anything). It is undoubtedly one of the most ambitious and epic films in the history of cinema. Wenders envisioned “Until the End of the World” as the “ultimate road movie,” and truly – what a journey it is! The film’s production aspect is already impressive: Robby Müller’s stunning cinematography depicts the world of 1999 as a familiar yet strange place; attractive and repulsive at the same time; multicultural yet hermetic and individualized; seemingly free but somehow oppressive; full of opportunities for contact with other people, yet fundamentally lonely.

The film begins as a story of unhappy love, then transforms into a spy thriller with road movie elements, and ends as a science fiction warning. Like any science fiction work aspiring to be a masterpiece, “Until the End of the World” uses the fantastic setting to comment on the present. Wenders wanted to make a film about the directions in which visual culture, which dominated the second half of the 20th century, would lead humanity. Today, Wenders’ intuitions seem very accurate, almost prophetic. In his film, a device for recording visual impressions for the blind and recording dreams, contained in equipment the size of a mobile phone, turns out to be a double-edged sword: Sam’s blind mother, after her first glimpse into the world through someone else’s eyes, is terrified of this world. Those who have perfectly healthy eyesight quickly become addicted to other people’s impressions and dreams, which they watch on digital screens. The fantasy of 1991 has become a reality in the 21st century.