Rating: 
Summary: Nice shots but....
Review: Well the cinematography is great. After only about 10 minutes though, you can see that this has been adapted from a novel and a literary one at that. Literary novels are notoriously difficult to adapt to the screen precisely because they draw attention to themselves as 'literature', their expression is intimately linked to the art-form in which they were created.The main characters seem to be on a mission to recapture some of the adventure that existed in pre-war America by entering the 'otherness' of North Africa. The realities of life there come to sour their rather naive utopian vision. I would resist from dissing a movie just because it doesn't have an identifiable plot (most of our real lives don't have one anyway), but most of these characters are very difficult to emphatise with. Debra Winger's transformation at the end of the film where she subsumes herself in Port's idealism, carrying on his adventurous nature as a way of coping with his loss is an interesting character development. But I'm sure this transformation is much better explained in the novel. On screen, without previous knowledge of the story, it comes across as inexplicible. No movie company would dream of financing a film script as rambling as this one if it was made by a first time director. This seems to be a vanity picture indulged in by Warners after the success of Bertolucci's 'The Last Emperor'.
Rating: 
Summary: When, When?
Review: When will this wonderful film finally be available in widescreen and on DVD?? The cinematography is gorgeous and Debra Winger is sooo earthy, sensuous. The director captures a Paul Bowles novel in a magnificent, stunning visual presentation. And Malkovich is always excellent. Get me this on DVD, PLEASE!
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