Until the End of the World is German film director Wim Wender’s epic road movie – which came out at the beginning of the nineties and captured my heart for all my years of intense travelling. It is one of those films I would call a Real film. It drags you in to a surreal, impressionistic atmosphere set in a future which convinces easily due to understated acting and the deliberately casual way it deals with ‘new’ technology. Technology we now take for granted.

The delightfully imagined appliances come surprisingly close to the truth, with the added effect that no consideration is made to keep them clean, in a Star Trek kind of way. The world portrayed in ‘Until the End of the World’ is motley, wayward, apocalyptic, and the use of technology is brute; it can get dirty, is handled casually, but loved. In my opinion Wenders manages to accurately foresee how we would cherish and make use of technology to enhance our human activities. However, the main emphasis of the story stays close to human issues, desires, plight and joy.

The introduction to the film came by my good friend Gavin, in a video shop on Rockey Street, Yeoville, which is a very rough neighbourhood in Johannesburg. “This is one to watch”, he said. That was it. I saw the face of William Hurt on the cover, and had pleasant memories of ‘The Big Chill’, so I grabbed it. Since then, there have been occasions that I hired it in a random city, to watch at someone’s house, and was confronted with footage on the tape I had never seen before. Slowly, the story unfolded itself to me: it turns out, when watching the Warner Brothers version, you only ever see the tip of the iceberg: Wenders shot enough footage to make an 8-hour movie experience. The commercial value of such a long film may be slender, but Wenders must have been having absolute ball. Apparently he ran out of money before being able to cross over to Africa, and shoot in the Congo.

I was shocked to read on internet that Solveig Dommartin died of a heart attack at age 47. She was the wonderful, wise and wild leading female part in “Until the End of the World”. Dommartin was really special; her eyes; that secret smile, speaking English with a strong but elegant Euro-German accent (she was French), her moves. When I saw the film or listened to its fantastic soundtrack, I always ‘was’ her. Dommartin was never an icon, but she looked fantastic in the Australian desert with that hat on, and the flowing, brown skirt, face round and shining like a moon, wild shock of blond curls.

The foreboding apocalyptic scenario, caused by a nuclear satellite out of control orbiting the earth, set in a (then) future 1999, to a raging, tailor made soundtrack by some of the hottest rock and protopunk artists of the 1980′s, help superbly in releasing all one’s contrived ideas about the comfort of civil solitude. Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, U2, Neneh Cherry, Peter Gabriel, Patti Smith, just to name a few, actually sat down on assignment by Wim Wenders, and penned a song AS THEY COULD IMAGINE THEMSELVES WRITING EIGHT YEARS IN THE FUTURE, produced exclusively for this film. That in itself goes down as a superb idea, now doesn’t it?

I was satisfied with just 2 and a half hours’ worth of futuristic travel epic across 4 or 5 continents. I was living that kind of life at the time. For many years this film was the visual and soundtrack of my life. It is impossible for me to write down, with any accuracy, the feelings that I get when watching this film. Perhaps, I muse, this is where film as a medium comes in, made sublimely complete with accompanying music, together, in their finest moment, proving more apt to convey a touch and feel, and an odd recognition, than even the best poetry on paper. How could I say?

When Solveig died, a murmur passed through the press, like a passing breeze, leaving no trace. She had managed to star in the greatest road movie of all times, and then slip back into life as she lived it, unnoticed.

Well, I’ve noticed.

ACN

Oh, Lawrence, with his woeful eyes. A hundred years ago he caught the world’s attention by wearing the traditional garb of an Arab, and unwittingly romanticising the Arab revolt with his blue eyes and fierce perseverance for the dignity for the Arab people.  Due to the excellence of his written English, his education in ancient civilisations and the depth and precision of his thinking, his story can still fall into unsuspecting hands today, and be immensely appreciated.

‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ (1926) is a compilation of military essays written by T.E. Lawrence about his designation as soldier and advisor in Arabia for the British Army during the First World War. A friend of mine said, it reads like ‘a boys’ adventure story’. Lawrence describes an endless desert of extreme weather conditions, riding racing camels, eating mutton boiled in butter from trays on the carpets of Bedouin tents, and sharing military tactics with the local tribal leaders in the hope of liberating them. All this, together with Lawrence’s wisdom, was brought to life in that book, and today is still given fresh legitimacy, in even in times of peace, by those who read it.

T.E. Lawrence was evidently a highly civilised man, who spoke many languages and was capable of immense transformation.  There was something very special, very unique about his quest and presence in Arabia, and how he earned the respect of the leaders of such a proud people in times of war. Even though he was a British Army delegate, he still remained an individual with a distinct presence and wisdom.

Notable however, is the fact that after returning to England after the war had ended, he died in a domestic accident. After having survived all the hazards of war, he swerved on a country road on his motorcycle (Brough Superior SS100), to avoid hitting a couple of teenage boys on bikes, went over his handlebars, and died of the sustained head injury six days later. His fatal accident resulted directly in research into the usefulness of crash helmets, by Hugh Cairns, the neurosurgeon that tended to him.

Lawrence of Arabia.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE – Tumble in the jungle with your Wild Side.

Enter the eerie and uncomfortable habitat of the monsters which lurk in the half-settled mind of a frustrated child. Film-maker Spike Jonze adapted the award-winning children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are”, written and illustrated in 1963 by Brooklyn-born Maurice Sendak (1928), to produce this exquisitely filmed, strange and unconventional dream-like adventure. This tender story about a boy – Max – who struggles with the human plight of being ten, and is chased into the recesses of his own imagination by his anger with life, has received a big Thumbs Up from the original writer and illustrator – and from me!

After a fight with his mother one evening, Max bolts out of his front door and sails over a magical sea to join the monsters of his mind. On an imaginary island they make fires and throw each other around; they sleep in a big pile together in the forests, and wake up to throw with mud, tumble down dune landscapes, and argue continually. Here, Max convinces the monsters not to eat him, and acquires the dodgy status of ‘king’. He is then allowed to lead the “rumpus”, and be boss over the games they play. Funny, how they build immense and sophisticated structures out of twigs on beaches and in caves as if it were nothing, but are thoroughly preoccupied with their squeamish pretend-adult-like conversations which amount to very little.

Independent film-maker Spike Jonze (1969) has made countless music videos and two feature films – ‘Being John Malkovic’ (1999) and ‘Adaptation’ (2002). Both of these previous films are laced with a typical Jonze-ian weirdness – a quality he has successfully exploited for this production, taking the audience into an utterly private place where we may witness the stumbling, hapless dialogue about complicated feelings, as only a child would have in its own head. How can it be, that I felt so at home watching this movie? That this secret place is so recognizable, even to a child grown up, like myself?

There have been mixed feelings as to if this is a children’s film or not, so I took caution and “pre-watched” it, before taking my own kids to see it (they are rather young). Well, I walked out of the theatre sure that I will certainly take them! Why the caution? Well, perhaps because this is not a funny film; it follows no Disney-like prescribed formulas, with twin joke-characters accompanying the main actor everywhere he goes, lighting up the story-line with silly little pranks and one-liners to make those who ‘feel different’ about themselves cope better. We are not led by the hand past the milestones of conventional drama-escalation formatting, known from countless other ‘kids-genre’ films. Spike Jonze takes the chance of exposing the watcher to oddity, and to a non-pre stencilled wilderness, in a way I can appreciate.

Maurice Sendak has given Spike Jonze his blessing for this film, which gave the original story the greater playground it deserved. Perhaps Jonze was a child like Max, who lets Lego-men live in a bird’s nest on his desk. I was a child like that, maybe that is why I like it; and I like it very much.

To the left: one of the original drawings from Maurice Sendak’s 1963 book.

Note: I have just seen the film again with my children, and with other mothers and their children. We all loved it, all over again! This film really touched hearts today: we all came out of the theatre really moved. I realise for myself that there is a magnificent wild side in all children, (and in some mothers, too) and if it is given its rightful place, then it may feel safe enough to show itself. I think wildness is just energy, of a special, non-conformist kind. But: “all monsters need a mother”, as Max says to Carol in the film. I think he’s right.

I am very grateful to Spike Jonze for having made this special film, and to those who approve of it! – which shows I may not be so alone in my thoughts and feelings about this. Spike Jonze is an artist with means; he was able to bring deeper values to the big screen, unhindered by ideas about what is ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ in parenting, but by just following his own feeling. Thanks, Spike. I am going to buy your film – from a shop.

ACN