https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_the_End_of_the_World (MyVideo)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Wenders#Film (b 1946)
Please introduce to me the film “Until the End of the World (German: Bis ans Ende der Welt)” (Wim Wenders, 1991), thanks. (ChatGPT, 2025-5-10)
Certainly. Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World (Bis ans Ende der Welt, 1991) is a sprawling, visionary science fiction road movie that blends existential longing, technological prophecy, and global exploration.
Basic Information
- Title: Until the End of the World (Bis ans Ende der Welt)
- Director: Wim Wenders
- Release Year: 1991
- Language: English, German, French, Japanese, and others
- Main Cast: William Hurt, Solveig Dommartin, Sam Neill, Max von Sydow, Jeanne Moreau
- Versions: Originally released in a ~2.5-hour theatrical cut, but Wenders later restored his intended 5-hour director’s cut, which has gained cult status.
Plot Summary (Spoiler-Aware Overview):
Set in the year 1999, on the eve of a potential nuclear satellite catastrophe, the film follows Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin), a restless wanderer, as she encounters Sam Farber (William Hurt), a mysterious man being chased across continents. He is carrying a revolutionary camera designed by his blind father (Max von Sydow) that can record images for the visually impaired—a device that also records dreams and inner visions.
Their journey spans from Europe through Russia, India, Japan, China, and finally to the Australian outback. The second half of the film, especially in the director’s cut, delves deeply into the psychic and existential consequences of this technology, which can seduce people into becoming addicted to their own dreams—prefiguring issues now linked to virtual reality, AI, and digital narcissism.
Key Themes:
- Technological Alienation and Dream Addiction:
The film presciently explores how recording and watching dreams can trap people in self-referential loops, making them forget to live. - Search for Meaning and Love:
It’s a metaphysical love story between Claire and Sam, entangled with questions of fidelity, memory, and forgiveness. - Nomadism and Exile:
Wenders structures the narrative like a van-life pilgrimage across a world in crisis, where every character is a displaced soul, searching. - Multilingual, Multicultural Earth:
With its diverse cast, global locations, and polyphonic soundtrack, the film envisions a borderless (but fragile) planet.
Aesthetic & Soundtrack:
- Visual Style: Cinematography by Robby Müller creates a luminous, painterly atmosphere—from neon-lit Tokyo streets to the ochre silence of the Australian desert.
- Music: The soundtrack is legendary, curated by Wenders with original compositions by artists like Talking Heads, Nick Cave, U2, R.E.M., Lou Reed, Patti Smith, and others—often recorded under the instruction to imagine what music would sound like in 1999.
Legacy and Interpretation:
Though initially misunderstood due to its length and narrative ambition, Until the End of the World has become a cult classic—praised as a pre-millennial epic that anticipated digital addiction, data saturation, and even aspects of AI’s effect on memory and perception.
It is both a science fiction fable and an existential diary—a film not just about the end of the world, but about what matters before that end arrives: memory, images, love, and the decision to turn back from the abyss.
Would you like a comparison between this film and other road movies or philosophical sci-fi works?
