Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

johnnyboyz Ultimately, The Sheltering Sky is too long; a film that wears out its welcome when it removes, for its third act, what made it so interesting for its first two. This is before stripping its resources bearer still for the very final few dozen minutes when further dynamics and characters are removed thus killing it off even more. One senses Bertolucci should have pulled the plug earlier than he did, some time before we're left with hanging shots of the intense African desert and those that inhabit it; the likes of whom the lone central character still left in the film falls in with, someone who then somewhat oddly comes to find a degree of liberation once this has happened. It isn't a bad film by any means, quite the opposite. For the most time, it's engrossing; a film about a relationship being strained and tested in an equally testing climate and locale, but when it decides to remove its love rival to this central tryst, the thematic flags; when the comic relief is removed in equal turn, Bertolucci is no longer able to demonstrate his acute ability to switch from tone to tone. The film falls as a result; the performances take over, the thing becomes an acting piece more-so a directorial piece: the marriage has been studied, played out and depicted - what we're left with is not as interesting.The scenario of matrimony in question is shared between Americans Port and Kit Moresby, played respectively by John Malkovich and Debra Winger. They are two people who arrive in a dusty, French speaking North African nation by boat from, what we assume from the use of found footage during the immediate opening, the city of New York. They do not see themselves as "tourists" in as much they see themselves "travellers", but such a challenging of a specific definition between two things, of which may as well mean the same thing anyway, essentially sets up the gradual unravelling of the marriage via the same intrinsic thing: the ambiguity over the definitions of whether Port and Kit any longer enjoy one another's presence. They are visiting this place with a friend called George Turner (Scott), a man whose presence threatens to wreck the Moresby's time here in so much Kit appears to take to him and Port is mostly suspicious of them as a pair.Propping up proceedings is a middle-aged Englishman named Eric (Spall), who's in and around our centred triangle with his mother, played by Jill Bennett: a professional travels guide writer and comic relief: "Spain!" she bellows. "Nothing but soldiers, priests and Jews!" Upon arrival, the Moresby's attempt to create share sort of intimacy is ruined when Kit brings up Turner and speaks well of his features. Things are not aided during this early awkward time when the general intimacy of the hotel is as prominent as it is, and Port feels the need to frequent a sex worker out of his frustrations born out of Kit's actions. Further distrust appears when both individuals take differing routes to a new hotel, a place to stay deeper still into this territory which gradually becomes more and more barren and away from any sort of urban congregation. Their scenes of philosophising and love making play out to a musical score consisting of a drum more broadly resembling a funeral death march, reiterating the potential their bond has to wreck itself.There is genuine room to enjoy the film as this piece of cinema depicting a love triangle as those involved trek across the unforgiving Saharan desert, and Bertolucci does well to correlate the people doing the mileage as the marriage itself struggles with the burden. There isn't much behind revealing that Turner and Kit do indeed connect with one another to an extent that would be thoroughly detrimental to any marriage should what transpire transpires here. The suspicions and such Port has for these two never explodes into anything overtly melodramatic, in fact we enjoy the film's maintain of it as this simmering object: never allowing for immediate, obligatory dramatic resolution as one party goes mad at another over things we're already aware of for meek domestic, dramatic kicks; something that would render it more reminiscent of a soap opera than this sweeping, period set, a million-miles-from-home desert-based piece.Later on, when Turner is removed from the film, the weight of this distrust and anxiety can only carry the film for so long. As mentioned, one senses the film wearing out its welcome as thematic and dramatic concentration are substituted for a more wandering; less congealed procession of sweeping Saharan compositions and the strength of the performances. Bertolucci's direction is assured; someone who really grounds out this atmosphere wherein events are moving slowly and we trudge through this hot, lazy place with this marriage additionally appearing to do likewise; this is without the film ever really feeling as if it too is doing the same. No doubt the film will displease some, but this is worth sticking out in the long run – it's just a shame one has to use a term along the lines of "long run" in the first place.

Rodrigo Amaro I'm truly disappointed with this film, not in the sense of throwing something to the screen or cursing everybody involved, but in the sense of almost crying simply because when you heard the names Bertolucci-Winger-Malkovich altogether you want to buy the DVD, buy popcorn and more just to see how wonderful this is and the final result is a big empty in their lives and almost a waste of our time. "The Sheltering Sky" is like a great body without a soul, a tragedy. What's the point of having the most dazzling and beautiful cinematography of all when you don't have a story to tell, don't have something to say and a purpose? Nothing. It knows how to relax your eyes both in a good and bad way; the good way being the most fantastic images and scenarios you'll ever gonna see; in the bad way because after one hour it starts to get boring, tiresome, pointless and it goes nowhere. Again, here's a story of people from the high class world (played by John Malkovich, Debra Winger, Campbell Scott and others) that seems to find a beautiful and intriguing place to live in Morocco, Africa, to finally realize that life's not that easy in places like this. If the main premise of the film was to show the difference between travelers and tourists then what I saw was that travelers are dumber than tourists who simply enjoy all the things of a foreign country and then they'll turn back home (as Winger explains in the beginning tourists go into a journey thinking of returning home right after they got in the new place). The tourists will have bad luck, all kinds of disease, infidelity affairs and other bad things.It is a good film to look at it, its visual, locations, culture, you feel in a different place, but in terms of story it's very empty, with no profundity at all. I expected more from Bertolucci and this film. But when your previous film win 9 Oscars and it's a art and historical masterpiece called "The Last Emperor" is very difficult to quite recover from there, to release something that touches the same grandiosity. "The Sheltering Sky" tries to be an epic but fails by being meaningless, just images and bored talks between characters. I'm not gonna say nothing about the performances because they weren't good neither bad, just too low considering other works. Gladly I haven't bought the DVD, but sometimes I wish because the images presented are so unique and wonderful that you simply have to watch it and try to hold it in your mind, for relaxations purposes. Weak, weak, weak. 4/10

Michael Neumann Two post-WWII Manhattan sophisticates who travel to avoid standing still embark on a soul-searching expedition into the Sahara Desert, where the beautiful but desolate landscapes provide a mirror to their own troubled relationship. The film is nothing if not exotic, presenting some of the purest visions of the desert since Peter O'Toole first rode a camel in 'Lawrence of Arabia'. But the scenario works best when presented as an ethnic travelogue, ushering viewers into an utterly foreign world. The messy marital plot conflicts are, by comparison, all rather vague, especially after Debra Winger goes native in a Bedouin harem. The story never really finds an ending, because there isn't anything to resolve: the characters all exist in a (handsomely photographed) vacuum, and their motivations are even more mysterious than the Arab culture surrounding them. The intrusive (and, as usual, unnecessary) voice-over narration is by novelist Paul Bowles himself, briefly glimpsed in the film's opening scenes.

Cosmin Erhan The Sheltering sky was considered a heavy book, heavy as importance, for the so called beat generation...so in my opinion, taking the story of Paul Bowles and adapting it to a movie was a real challenge...despite the simple storyline that everyone notices, the book/movie has deeper meanings...i watched the movie a lot of times and having read the book made me see better the B.Bertolucci hand...trying to create the place for actually an internal bleeding, a deep hurtful feeling, both Bowles and Bertolucci have to use the symbolism of the desert's vanity...and the inner searches go very well with the message of the traveler who refuses to be just a tourist, setting a line to separate the meaningful from the meaningless...READ the book and then be impressed by the adds that Bertolucci makes, just to give you a very personal approach... "You are so alone..."- a beautiful way to end the journey of Port, Kit and Tunner...