Rating: 
Summary: Shelter From Thyself
Review: "We are not tourists, we are travellers" says Port Moresby(John Malkovich) as he, his wife Kit(Debra Winger) and their garrulous friend George Tunner(Campbell Scott) arrive on the shores of Tangiers. Tunner, young and rich as he is, seems to be accompanying them for the hell of it. Why exactly the two principle protagonists choose to embark on such a labyrinthine and possibly one way journey deep into the Sahara is never made clear. There is ofcourse that universal, hokey and meaningless reason of "finding oneself in an uncorrupted land". If I had to guess, then I would say that this couple is trying escape from themselves, from their probationary relationship with each other. Perhaps the ruggedness of this adventure will filter their emotions, purify the love that is obviously still there. Or maybe they were just bored. One thing for sure, Bertolucci's epic requires you to do a lot of guessing. Initially the film looks like its going to be an intriguing love triangle drama. There are even hints of an unconventional sexual relationship between husband and wife. For instance, after Port spends the night with a Nomadic prostitute, he returns to find Tunner in his bedroom(seperate but adjoining his wife's), "What was he doing in my bedroom?" he asks her over dinner. "He was waiting for me to get dressed?" she answers quite truthfully."But you didn't tell me where you where last night?" she counters."You didn't ask" he replies. "And I'm never going to" she finally says. Alas, this triangle is quickly abandoned by the screenplay in favour of several self-contained episodes as the trio travel from one town to another. A sub-plot involving a mother/son duo of fellow expatriots who may or may not be con artists is introduced and never followed up. Infact The Sheltering Sky suffers a complete narrative meltdown at about its midway point. We get a final hour that seems like a National Geographic special, only without the commentary. Yet I was transfixed by the film's visual splendor even when I was sure it was going nowhere. Like the Egyptian desert(which I often observe travelling from Cairo to Alexandria and back), the Sahara desert is vast succession of freeform sandhills that are silhouetted by the wind into what looks like brown cream. It is as beautiful as it is harsh. Bernardo Bertolucci and his cinematographer Vittorio Storaro exploit both of these qualities to maximum effect. There are moments in The Sheltering Sky when you are exhilerated by the desert's vastness and others when you are suffocated by the endless gusts of sand. The Sheltering Sky marks the reteaming of director Bertolucci, co-screenwriter Mark Peploe and producer Jeremy Thomas after the multi-Oscar winning The Last Emperor. It is interesting to note that in both films, the protagonist(s) are caught in a chain of event beyond their control. But in the vastly superior The Last Emperor that was precisely the point, a clueless young man who was played for a fool by the many opportunists around him. In The Sheltering Sky there are no opportunists, the characters have placed themselves in this position for reason known only to themsleves. The setting of the film draws comparison to The English Patient, but Minghella's Oscar winner is a multi-layered masterpiece about obligation, possessivness and the love affair that fuels them, within a still more fascinating framework of war. The Sheltering Sky is not a masterpiece, it just looks like one. In the end I had the feeling I was watching a stunning, if largely inexplicable visual companion to a novel I hadn't read. By all acounts Paul Bowles's source novel is a masterwork that explores its themes(whatever they are) to the fullest extent. I'm inclined to agree with the reviewer below that the film has no story, something I generally don't mind. What bothers me is that for such an important looking film, it is one with no theme, no purpose for being. As a journey into an exotic land, The Sheltering Sky is an experience worth having, even if we're experiencing it through the eyes of characters who for 137 minutes remain just as foreign as the land they occupy.
Rating: 
Summary: "EXESTENTIAL" NONSENSE.....
Review: Bringing Paul Bowles to the screen was risky business and they knew it. This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Rich, jaded people in search of "something more" journey to Morroco and end up shattered and destroyed against breathtaking cinematography. It's all supposed to be about spirititual enlightenment but it comes off as pompous and preachy. Nothing subtle here. It features one of the longest death scenes on record and the descent into hell of Debra Winger as a wayward wife who ends up a tatooed concubine of a harem keeper traveling the desert. Stupifyngly dull and tiresome in it's heavy handed moralizing, this is a...of a movie. And it's way overlong...
Rating: 
Summary: BERTOLUCCI does BOWLES -- c'est magnifique!
Review: Director Bernardo Bertolucci is the perfect choice for bringing Paul Bowles incredible novel -- one of the most finely crafted of the 20th century and one of my favorite books -- to the screen. Debra Winger and John Malkovich are fine as Kit and Port -- spoiled, bored, EMPTY Americans 'travelling' (NOT tourists) in Morocco just after WWII. Their journey -- one of self-discovery and an attempt to bring some life back into their marriage -- turns from one of idle fascination with an exotic culture (one in which Bowles, the author, immersed himself long ago, one which he loved unabashedly) turns into a trip to hell. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. Campbell Scott is also good in the role of their friend Tunner, and the Lyles -- the fawning Eric and his intolerably superior mother -- are every bit as disgusting as they seem. Some viewers have found these latter two portrayals to be a bit 'over the top' -- but they're completely irritating characters, whining and complaining constantly about the conditions in which they chose to place themselves. They are the biting fleas you cannot remove from your sleeping bag, no matter how long you search for them. Filmed on location in the African desert, the film resounds and shines with Bertolucci's touch -- if it seems long and slow in places, those characteristic accurately portray the atmosphere of life in desert Morocco. The unbelievable heat would tend to slow things down a bit. The director's use of camera angles, light, and those long, slow, sweeping shots are masterful and perfect. Bowles was consulted every step of the way -- a sign of the respect held for the author and his work by the director -- and he even appears in the film and supplies narration. I am amazed that a film of this scope, made by a director of Bertolucci's stature, with two of the most critically acclaimed actors of our time, has not appeared on DVD. There's a wonderful documentary called DESERT ROSES: THE MAKING OF 'THE SHELTERING SKY' that would make a nice piece of bonus material for a DVD release. When the film was shown on BRAVO, that network had the good taste to run the documentary along with it. There's also a fine documentary on Bowles available from Mystic Fire Video, PAUL BOWLES IN MOROCCO, that gives an informative portrait of this literary giant.
Rating:
Summary: Read the Book Instead
Review: I recently read Paul Bowles "The Sheltering Sky" and found it to be a haunting, captivating, and philosophical masterpiece. It is a book that will stay with me forever. I was excited to see that it had been made into a movie. However, I found the movie disappointing. I think the book does not lend itself well to being translated to film since much of the "story" is the underlying thoughts, feelings and changes within the characters. The film starts with a "narrator" observer (Mr Bowles himself!) but after that scene the narration does not continue. Then there is the last part of the book where Kit joins the nomad caravan. In the book I found this to be "believeable" but on screen it was silly especially without knowing what was really motivating her since the dialog of her thoughts was left in the book. I couldn't help wondering what someone who had not read the book would think was going on and WHY. I also found the dialog a little "stilted" - more like dialog in a play than a movie. The scenery and desert shots were beautiful. Ah well. This just proves once again that the "movie" in your own mind is the best there is! Read the book!
Rating:
Summary: No cookie cutter drama here...
Review: I viewed the movie first, was so intriqued with it that I had to read the book. This movie, I believe was designed to most affect you after you have viewed it. It is after you have viewed the movie and sit back to reflect on the movie that you realize how powerful the movie is and how it seems to sum up what happens in long term love relationships (these affects are all around us as witnessed by our friends and nieghbors separations and divorces) as if somehow humans can't seem to stay monogamus past 5 to 10 years - though the pain delivered to both parties through infedelity is immense it seems to happen in many long term relationship again and again. I am single and am surrounded by failing marriages and relationships which seems to be a case in point. There seems to be a force pushing people to others after the chemistry of two people have settled - though companionship is a most vital quality of long term relationships. This movie outlines companionship even after the physical excitement has waned and the photo journalism of these characters lives in the desert is breathtaking. You will leave this movie with more of an emotional response than an analytical response, it is winding and vast and does not come together like a cookie cutter - paint by numbers movie. If you can sit through this drama, you will come away with a nod to the human condition agreeing with what we see in the movie and all around us.
Rating:
Summary: Poor novel poorly adapted
Review: I'm not certain what it is that characterizes a book as 'Literary'. Perhaps Literariness requires that the work cohere with a previously established order of literature, something like Eliot's 'Tradition'; or perhaps it is a universal value which some texts possess and others simply do not, and of which it is the responsibility of the critic to uncover - I really don't know. However, I am fairly certain that, if we are speaking in terms of canonization, Paul Bowls novel constitutes apocrypha. In terms of characterization (isn't any), structure (dissolved half way through) and intellectual depth (think Matrix style existentialism - I mean, it's hardly Beckett is it), three criteria by which, I think, we may judge the Literary aspirations of a novel, the Sheltering Sky is clearly forcefully un-literary, perhaps even self-consciously so. I was thus shocked to read the comments of a previous reviewer, according to whom the film's problems were a direct result of the novels Literariness. Clearly he hasn't read the book. There are within the novel sections pleasantly evocative of contemporary Africa. However, these sections are not enough to redeem it from the angsty, inarticulate existentialist mess that it descends into. In short the novel collapses under the weight of its own pretension. Wisely, Bertolucci seems to play down the existentialist side of things, and to concentrate instead on the cinematic rendering of post-war Africa. Of course, as a medium film enjoys huge advantages over literature in this respect: film works through the senses, we 'feel' them; the novel, on the other hand, is experienced intellectually, and is thus subject inevitably to the abstractions and distortions which mar the process of evocation. We really see these advantages in effect here: visually Bertolucci's film is nothing short of stunning. Yet this is not enough somehow - having mostly removed the quasi-philosophical core of the novel, the film feels empty (witness the pointless stilted, expositional dialogue of the first 30 minutes, for example). This emptiness is not to be filled by pchycological character study or exiting plot shifts - both characters and plot are handles in the film as amatuerishly as they were in the book. Bertolucci undertakes to fill this emptiness, it seems, by reinventing the story as an 'erotic-drama', to attempt to charge it with a fervidness that was (perhaps deliberately) only latent within the novel. The practical results of this are a couple of rather gratuitous shots of Debra Winger's bottom, and the scene featuring the Bedouin prostitute with gratuitously large breasts. Consequently the film is about as erotic as your average soft-core porno movie.
Rating:
Summary: Good dramatisation of a terrible book
Review: It seems churlish not to rate more highly a film which achieves pretty much all it set out to achieve, but I think you have to judge a film by its overall impression, and while this is beautiful and probably elegiac, it is still an intensely annoying film about a couple of very dislikeable people. That isn't Bernado Bertolucci's fault, of course: Paul Bowles' novel of the same name is an intensely annoying, pretentious book. Bertolucci has, if anything, improved on the raw material in the parts he has left out, but fundamentally he can still be brought to book for filming it the first place. I have only recently finished reading The Sheltering Sky. I hated it. When I read the glowing, passionate reviews of pretty much every reviewer on Amazon, I thought I must have missed something, or completely misunderstood the book. Just to check, I got hold of the movie. To my tremendous relief, I now see I didn't (or, if I did, then so did Bertolucci): the film is pretty much exactly how I imagined it would be. Malkovich nails the Port Moresby character (how odd, incidentally, to name your lead character after a place in Papua New Guinea). Port is what the Brits would describe in their inimitable way as a "complete wanker". Debra Winger captures Kit Moresby's high-tensile stupidity perfectly. In her opening scene, she wigs out after roughly fifteen seconds of an innocuous conversation because she doesn't want Port to talk about a dream he has had, lest Tunner should repeat it back in New York. But then within twenty minutes, she's having sexual intercourse with Tunner behind Port's back, apparently without a second thought to the stir this might create back home should Tunner happen to mention it. Port is no cuckold, though: Even before Kit's infidelity, he has, during the course of an evening stroll, wound up having it off with a Bedouin prostitute at the edge of town. Thereafter, disaffection for the protagonists is total. It is impossible to care a fig whether either lives or dies, and the only value the film offers is the satisfaction of seeing that one of them does eventually die, together with a star comedy turn by Timothy Spall, Bertolucci's luscious cinematography, and a number of gratuitous shots of Debra Winger's nether regions. None of which is reason enough to rent this for an evening, sad to say. Olly Buxton
Rating:
Summary: The Stifling Sky
Review: Paul Bowles' novel of self-discovery in the Sahara is one of my favorite books of all time. So I looked forward with great anticipation to Bernardo Bertolucci's film version. The desert makes a great setting for film as amply illustrated by such films as Lawrence of Arabia and The English Patient. Although Bertolucci and cinematographer succeed brilliantly in evoking the images and atmosphere of postwar North Africa, on other levels the effort is decidedly mixed. For me the flaws lie primarily with the casting of the leads. John Malkovich and Debra Winger both turn in earnestly game performances as Port and Kit Moresby, a couple of self-centered, idle rich New Yorkers who come to Africa with the purpose of having an adventure to spice up their 10-year-old marriage and distract themselves from their increasing emotional distance. Both Port and Kit pride themselves on being "travellers" rather than mere tourists, as they explain rather pompously to their travelling companion, a mutual and barely tolerated acquaintance who has his eye on Kit. All three travel with a ridiculous amount of luggage and it is soon clear that style rather than substance rule Kit and Port's world and that they are just drifting aimlessly through life without any clear goals because they have the financial means to do so. Kit and Port are figures straight out of Fitzgerald--young, stylish, self-absorbed and devoid of any moral compass. Malkovich is badly miscast as the urbane and intellectual Port, a man struggling to retain his preconceived ideas of how to live in a completely alien atmosphere where things are rapidly falling apart. Malkovich has none of Port's slightly girlish beauty or polished manners that Bowles describes, and his flat, light voice is annoying and makes throwaways of some of Bowles' excellent dialogue. Malkovich excels at playing malevolent characters, and always exudes a sinister aura, which is totally wrong for Port. Port lacks backbone and empathy with others, being too enamored of what goes on inside his own head, but he is not evil. Debra Winger fares a little better as Kit, whose personal oddysey becomes the focus of the story. She too is physically wrong for the part--dark and earthy where Bowles' Kit is fair, fragile and projects an air of helplessness, at least in the early part of the book. Winger is too gutsy for Kit, and also too much of a mature woman. Her attempts at disingeniousness seem forced and silly, since with her whiskey laugh and voluptuous limbs, she is obviously in charge of herself and seems unlikely to be the helpless victim of circumstances that Kit is. Her husky Midwestern-ness is also at odds with the cultured Eastern society debutante of Bowles' book. She looks fabulous in the period costumes, however, and as her character goes deeper into the desert, both literally and figuratively speaking, the character grows into Winger, rather than the other way around. Cambell Scott, Timothy Spall and Jill Bennett are strong in supporting roles, at times threatening to overshadow the two leads. Ryuichi Sakamoto's score is haunting but at times too jarring for the action. The dialog is at times heavy and the motivations opaque; the author (who has a cameo in the film as a mysterious blind man glimpsed in a bar--he also provides narration) has written a story of a journey that is more interior than exterior; as a result it does not translate easily to film. I highly recommend reading the novel prior to viewing the movie so you can tell what's going on in this visually gorgeous yet unsettling and ultimately unsatisfying film.
Rating:
Summary: Hypnotic, visually superb film
Review: The Sheltering Sky is based on Paul Bowles novel, relating how an American couple attempted to rekindle their marriage by journeying into the heart of the Sahara desert. As if afraid of confronting the tensions between them, Port (John Malkovich) agrees to take along with them the wealthy playboy Tunner, at least for the first part of their journey. And so creating a "menage-a-trois" situation, with Port later realising his true feelings for his wife Kit (Debra Winger)But fate deals them a savage hand, as the harsh, unforgiving terrain of the Sahara makes it's own impact on their destiny. The film owes much to the superb music score, a haunting passionate love theme, played in an austere way, like two people in love, yet both afraid to commit, hinting not only at their concealed passion, but also inner loneliness. With many attractive Arabic themes also. If you prefer action films, don't think about buying this one. Some may find it long, introspective, and at times, ambiguous, with the narrative often giving way to somethig akin to a national geographic documentary. The remaining leading character spoke only a handful of words for the last three quarters of an hour..But a beautiful, lush, masterful journey which lovers of Africa will not want to miss.
Rating:
Summary: What A Beautiful Film
Review: this film has a haunting quality which makes it almost frightening. Although the young American couple, who are protagonists of this film, travel deeper and deeper into the North African desert in search of a self-revelation that will help them save their relation, they only find self-destruction. In the midst of the frightening nothingness of the inmense landscapes, and the still more frightening nothingness of the increasingly evident impossibility of communication (and not only with the natives), each of them feels compelled to confront what they really are, to look inside themselves. What they see there finally destroys them in a shattering moment (superbly performed) of true, if unbearable, revelation. A very good film, although it doesn't follow many of the aspects of the novel that would help the audience to understand better this story.
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