1007 Until the End of the World

[Mr Sausage]

DISCUSSION ENDS MONDAY, September 14th

Members have a two week period in which to discuss the film before it's moved to its dedicated thread in The Criterion Collection subforum. Please read the Rules and Procedures.

This thread is not spoiler free. This is a discussion thread; you should expect plot points of the individual films under discussion to be discussed openly. See: spoiler rules.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

I encourage members to submit questions, either those designed to elicit discussion and point out interesting things to keep an eye on, or just something you want answered. This will be extremely helpful in getting discussion started. Starting is always the hardest part, all the more so if it's unguided. Questions can be submitted to me via PM.

[therewillbeblus]

I was hoping some people would watch this one. I guess I'll post my latest thoughts on it from the dedicated thread after all

Revisiting this, I was less enamored with the first half, which blew me away in theatres, and was much more aware of (and captivated with) the banality and apathy of the fleeting chase. It's still beautiful eye candy, and interesting for different reasons: because all the striking imagery and vicious magnitude of the adventures are inversely muted by the characters' ennui, creating a raw detachment between expectation (of cinema, of fantasies, of dreams?) and reality. The film doesn't linger in any location for long enough to bask in topographical porn, and so the impermanent nature of travel is reduced to this facade of finite escapism. Claire experiences this, as we hear from narration and see ourselves loud and clear, a citizen of the world who is returning to home base, just as bored and indifferent to the world as I imagine she was when she set out on her 'adventures.' The intent of a geographical cure isn't known or important, but Claire's attempts at finding herself in any location, or accessing herself through accessing diverse spaces or cultures, are failures because she chooses to externalize her aims rather than internalizing them. All the scenery and adventures in the world won't solve the problem that is Claire.

The same goes for Hurt's Sam, who is caught up in a man-on-the-run scenario on a mission to record, rather than live, life. This is a film about people who are either afraid or numb to freedom from themselves to engage in the present moment. Claire acts as though she practices as unrestrained mindfulness, but she is always looking, moving, going somewhere; never 'present.' These characters' inability to meditate in place casts a shadow of dullness on our interpretation of their world, perhaps a result of the global decay of social and physical self-destruction projected onto them- or maybe the state of the world is as it is because of how human beings have projected their own self-destruction onto it, facilitating cosmic destruction. Claire is pining for Sam, obsessed with a future with him, even when together - they don't "share" moments, only ideas and the vague concept of future-oriented objectives. When they actually meet their destination, in the film's still-painfully-bloated second half, the focus turns to another escapist mission, though one that is physically static while the previous attempts were only mentally static. They cannot remain in the present, together or alone, and so they

Spoiler

become addicted to watching their own dreams, self-absorbed perhaps, but definitively evasive. The allegory to drug addiction is obvious, but this fits with the self-medication hypothesis of addiction- which can be subscribed to media addiction or other self-distancing practices as well- in that dysphoric states are so strong and unmanageable that a person avoids them at all costs. These mental states often manifest from sitting still in the moment with one's own thoughts and feelings. The characters cannot bear to do this, as they have not grown into themselves in a social context that encourages strategy-development in this domain and thus have identities that are reduced to faux-goals of hollow aims.

The commentary on our global evolution of cultural melting, and the stunting effects on individuals' existential muscles, is powerful in a subversive way, by prohibiting us from passively enjoying a film that should be joyfully escapist into one that is neither joyous or escapist, and reflectively about the incapacity to enjoy or escape. The success of Wenders' earlier road movies comes from an acceptance of the idea of physical travel as futile in absolving an individual of their ennui in expected, conscious, safely externalized ways of accruing a measured alleviation of dysphoria; instead providing experiences that allow for development to occur unexpectedly and unconsciously through internalized travel via exposure to the banal, which acts as a reflective tool to force self-awareness. His films don't pretend that these trips solve existential crises, but that they do serve as new tools to knit the very same fabric of one's life. This film does something similar, though we are left at the end with

Spoiler

an almost uncomfortably unevolved state of the central characters to the naked eye, which is very much the point. Claire is continuing on her aimless path, now a temp astronaut, and Sam has returned to his family who have left him. And yet, Claire has friends who call in to wish her happy birthday, and she is significantly stuck in a static space (in space..), searching for change but allowing herself to remain in one place, no longer afraid to cope with sitting in her own skin- or if so, at least willing to, and capable of, facing the challenge. Sam has lost his family, but his own self-destructiveness in living his life for others' goals and dreams has ended, and one must hope that now that he has been stripped of all outlets to distract he may finally begin to live for himself.

One has to use their imagination here, but in an ironic maneuver the film has been one giant front for the journey that is yet to come. We have experienced a five-hour wildly eccentric colorful palette of adventure that has actually been a vapid minute chapter in the continuous journeys of these characters' lives, and one that -despite all the physical moving- has been all for igniting a spark that kicks off whatever exceptionally pronounced growth and change will happen next. Though of course, if we take the outlook that initiating change is the most difficult part of the process, we have witnessed something extraordinary-just against the grain of our expectations. So, undoubtedly, a Wenders film.

Discussion questions:

1. I talked more about it elsewhere in the film's dedicated thread, including in relation to Land of Plenty, but I think Wenders reached a point here where he had perfected the traditional 'road movie' and began to use that format even more metaphysically to focus the themes of the genre into the soul's development. What do people think about this film being superficially an expansive road movie geared at a goal of characters being able to internally remain still with themselves?

2. Going off that, I feel like there is a preoccupation with achieving 'nothingness' not as nirvana but as a form of avoidance to the intangible. The film's last act is heavily focused on retrieving and recording dreams, making the transient tangible, and then becoming addicted to that safe haven. From a spiritual angle, do others sense an exposed irony (perhaps in comparison to Evangelion's ending, as Colin alluded to in the dedicated thread) to how a goal of 'nothingness' or nirvana may actually be a form of escapism rather than a movement towards serenity?

3. Beyond the symbolism already said, I'm wondering how people read this as allegorical to our preoccupation with cinema or television, possibly in vicariously experiencing emotions and dreams safely through relatable images?

4. Since this is for the Sci-Fi project, how do others read the futuristic components (or other sci-fi elements) including the geographical/globalist details that reflect changes vs. ones that resemble natural present-day spaces in contributing to its themes, especially regarding their function as barriers or opportunities for developing identity and finding meaning?

5. Since colin mentioned that in addition to touching on practically every genre, this film is also a musical, it's notably one without any numbers but where the soundtrack plays over characters searching, confused, numbing themselves, and doing just about everything but self-actualizing through the music like they would in a traditional genre pic. Does anyone see this as a kind of anti-musical musical, and if so, how else may it embody flexible criteria?

I'm a bit all over the place here, so sorry if any of this is confusing, but hopefully it'll be helpful in kickstarting some discussion even outside of these points

[soundchaser]

To your fifth point: I’d be inclined to agree were it not for the extended musical jam sessions in the back half. I’m still not sure what to make of those, admittedly, because they feel like sort of a dumping ground for Winter and the other characters that have outlived their narrative purpose. But it is interesting to contrast their communal, creative act of starting a local band with the solitary, passive dream watching that goes on inside the cave.

[colinr0380]

Watching that cyberpunk context section of the Action Button review of Cyberpunk 2077 that gets into various films and games that could be classed as part of the ‘cyberpunk’ genre got me to thinking that (as with the similarly also not mentioned in the review video game >Observer_) Until The End of the World could be classed as a great example of cyberpunk that perfectly encapsulates that early 90s sense of virtual reality in the time when ubiquitous online connectivity was a novelty rather than a given. It captures that almost grungily biological sense of clunky analogue technology performing technological feats of wonder externally before burrowing into the flesh ’supposedly’ in a seamless manner but often with unexpected and tangible consequences.

In Until The End of the World we get the virtuality of travel, which may be more seductive than actual international jet-setting. The connection of video calls creating a facsimile of togetherness across vast distances. The sense of a disconnection from the real world issues that get reduced to bland background environments to be consumed. And Jeanne Moreau appearing at the end of the road trip, waiting there like an NPC ready to dispense out the few lines that have been allocated to her character in a form of welcome, but little more than that. Maybe even knowing that on the ‘player characters’ reaching her that inevitably pushes her narrative arc on towards the next scene of her character on her deathbed.

It is fascinating that I don’t think the Wim Wenders film has been much considered through the William Gibson/Neal Stephenson-influenced ‘cyberpunk’ lens too much, despite Private Investigators, future-tech and people losing themselves inside VR devices making it feel very much in that vein. That may be because Until The End of the World gets a bit silly whenever it has to deal with its technology and is eventually dismissive towards the make-up of its futuristic society (because it’s a solipsistic tale that ends in a technological desert wasteland) in comparison to Blade Runner (but, like Cyberpunk 2077, that flawed and messy approach to cyberpunk aesthetics, often in thrall to attitudes and in particular musical styles that are very painfully rooted in the present-quickly-turned-past of their manufacture is probably highlighting a lot of the limitations of the concept, as very datedly futuristic aesthetics clash up against the philosophical ideas that similarly are of their time, whilst still retaining an important influence on future trends in sci-fi). It may also be because it has always been just as fruitful to see Until The End of the World through the lens of how it fits specifically into Wim Wenders’ career of road movies, taking the concept as far as it can go, and maybe beyond its breaking point as the characters move off into new dimensions of self-obsession where there are not even any maps for the territories that they are exploring any more, except those which they make for themselves on their own personal forms of Walk Through H’s.

[RPG]

To your fifth point: I’d be inclined to agree were it not for the extended musical jam sessions in the back half. I’m still not sure what to make of those, admittedly, because they feel like sort of a dumping ground for Winter and the other characters that have outlived their narrative purpose. But it is interesting to contrast their communal, creative act of starting a local band with the solitary, passive dream watching that goes on inside the cave.

I think that last sentence is precisely what this sequence is all about. All of these people, who have been chasing each other, robbing, trying to kill, trying to woo -- trying to find meaning in life. By some crazy accident and a (possible) nuclear apocalypse where they be at the end of the world, they all end up together in bumfuck nowhere Australia. And through art, they find peace, friendship, common ground. I don't see this as a dumping ground, it's the culmination of the journey.

A little before this, Eugene says something to Phillip Winter to the effect of the importance of writing and fiction (i.e., art), and Winter shrugs it off, preferring reality. Not 30 minutes later, the jam band has fully formed and everyone is happy together, including Winter.

Everything falls apart when technology advances too far. People are staring into their screens rather than connecting with each other, with a particular beautiful image of Sam and Claire sitting across a scenic small lagoon, in each other's presence but far away from each other, their eyes locked into their dream screens. Human connection is lost, and human connection and art are what makes us fulfilled. Not technology. Eugene's manuscript ultimately brings Claire out of her depression.

It is interesting, however, at the very end that what is essentially a Zoom call to space brings Claire closer to her friends at home. Technology bridging the gap and being a benefit in this case. (On another note, she had quite the life by the age of 30, didn't she?)

Personally, I loved this movie. It's unquestionably a mess, but I don't care, I was enthralled through all 5 hours.