Watching this movie makes you understand why the Axis powers lost World
War II. The Italians are ineffectual and the Germans so full of themselves
that they self-destruct. Nothing I can say about "Beyond the Clouds"
could be as bad as the movie itself.
An attempt at a plot synopsis is an exercise in absurdity - and yet, the
dialogue lets us know that the filmmaker(s) have great ambition to "meaning."
The trouble is the filmmakers are those avatars of alienation, Antonioni
and Wim Wenders. Antonioni is credited as the director; however, he has
been very ill for the last decade and hardly in a position to be an "auteur"
as that term is understood in the world of art films. Antonioni has always
measured the temperature of social decadence in Italy. Here, he's reduced
to soft-core, cable-TV porn for his alienation. (The sex scenes are full-frontal.)
It is up to Wim Wenders to plug in the philosophy. And Germans are full
of it. Wenders is credited with the prologue (John Malkovich on a plane
("Wings Above Rome"), the entr'actes ("Waiter, I'll take
the pasta entr'acte") and epilogue (John Malkovich on a train - yet
another American friend). He tries to stuff the empty Italian film with
Teutonic philosophical comments. Now Germany is the land of Kant, Hegel,
Nietzsche, Heidigger, and film directors who read them. Thus, the dialogue
is full of statements about silence, the enslavement of desire, killing
of fathers ("I stabbed him 12 times," says a girl in a Ralph Lauren
outfit.), and dead-pan responses like "It fixed me with tragic irony."
Beautiful cinematography yields up scenes that look like Lifestyles of the
Perfumed and Poetic. You know - those vapid, well-dressed models in TV commercials
you don't understand until the perfume bottle zooms up to your screen: "Sensation
- when resistance is no option..."
What is this movie selling? The idea of the film director as a riddle wrapped
in an enigma! And unadulterated narcissism. Even worse, it's inconsistent.
John Malkovich, who "plays" the director, seems in the beginning
to talk about himself as an actor: "I came to find a character and
found a story." (Gag me with a creative writing class.) Then he pulls
out a Nikon and starts talking about himself as a photographer. Then in
the end, he's on a train, a director without direction. So I would just
suggest that the misunderstood, whining auteur in Wim Wenders' epilogue
take some simple advice. Decide what you are and just do the job. In a pinch,
tell a story. Don't reinvent existentialism. Be original.
Oh, and when you have suave gigolos named Silvano in Hugo Boss suits putting
the make on a girl, don't have him tell her, "I am a drainage pump
technician." Although God knows German films could use a few of them.
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