Rating: 
Summary: What's the point?
Review: Okay, I watch lotsa foreign films, and love letterbox and subtitles and MEANING in my videos and DVDs. But this film is the reason why MOST AMERICANS HATE FOREIGN FILMS. It's pointless, boring, full of sex without substance, and "dreamy" if your dreams lack substance. I didn't enjoy it AT ALL. And I think Wim Wenders is an absolute Genius. Oh, well. That's all. Maybe it's one of those 'it's the sort of thing you'll like if you like this sort of thing.' I DON'T.
Rating: 
Summary: disturbing and stunning
Review: Something about this movie gripped me and wouldn't let go. Maybe it was a central theme about our failed attempts to connect with one another. But I've watched it twice in just a couple of days and know that I'll be watching it again and soon. A disturbing and stunning work. Worth the effort to try and understand -- or to just experience. I think I'll have to add to this "review" after I've seen the film a few more times.
Rating: 
Summary: Cloudscapes form a Great Director
Review: The great Italian director, Michelangelo Antonioni spins four dreamy tales into an uneven confection concerning passion and connectivity. Though not as bitter as La Notte or L'Avventura (two of his masterpieces), in this film Antonioni seems more pensive and nostalgic for the tragedy of passing time and lost love. A great cast fills the landscape of lovers trying to connect and passions boiling beneath the surface, some fulfilled, others disappointingly engaged. John Malcovich wanders through the film as a narrator connecting the threads of the four stories (the direction assisted by Wim Wenders due to Antonioni's age and the after effects of a stroke), and the international cast of Peter Weller, Irene Jacob, Vincent Perez, Sophie Marceau and Jean Reno are perfectly tuned in to the director's icy, haunting style. A brief cameo by Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau (stars of La Notte) is touching and sad. This film is a must for Antonioni's fans, his scene composition and camerawork are still among the best of any living director.
Rating:
Summary: A Short Guide to Beauty vs. Meaning
Review: There are those who appear to have difficulty understanding or appreciating this film.BEYOND THE CLOUDS obscures meaning with its beauty for many viewers. However, perhaps the director wishes us to exercise our imaginations and understandings beyond the perception of surface beauty. It is difficult in spots. The scene where the young male lover can barely get himself to touch his girlfriend, then leaving in disgust, is disturbing. It is reminiscent of the painful moments in Antonioni's 1964 color film, 'Red Desert.' Yet all of Antonioni's films, as other viewers have here and elsewhere indicated, are throbbing with meaning underneath their often quiet surfaces. Some of the cafe style speech of some of the characters in these four strung-together tales is considered a little too 'New Age,' and superficial in tone. True, that which sounds like pseudo-philosophy can be irritating... However, such stretches do appear in Antonioni's other films. The director ventures to depict such ramblings in order to reveal their social and psychological style, 'music,' and their possible real meaning. Perhaps they take a little thought for the viewer. An Antonioni film is a real experience. Watching BEYOND THE CLOUDS more than once may be necessary, in order to come around to the director's point-of-view. Perhaps approaching this film as a lengthy contemplation or meditation, rather than just a clever stretch of footage, is the best approach. It is difficult to appreciate right away, like most of Antonioni's films, because it is deeper than it seems on first viewing. Some have been annoyed with the apparent lack of unity of these four tales. Yet look again. Perhaps an underlying unity in this film eluded you on first viewing. Perhaps perceiving needs a chance to gestate, and grow. Others have been annoyed with the choices of 'pop' music the director chose to line his film with. Yet we have come to lose sight of the issue of 'layers of meaning' in a film or other works of art. We no longer wonder why a director chooses his music: we simply condemn him for his choices outright, and at first hearing, without thinking. Still others condemn the film for what they perceive as gratuitous soft-core nude scenes. Perhaps they are. Yet, perhaps they mean to say something else within the context of BEYOND THE CLOUDS. I think this thoughtful, demanding, and beautiful film is one of the best bargains on the 'art' film market today (or any other day.) It is definitely worth owning and watching more than once... I hope this helps.
Rating:
Summary: Antonioni does Antonioni
Review: This is a beautiful set of short films stitched together into one film with Malkovich as a stand in for the wandering director (MA) himself. Malkovich wanders through Italy and France dreamily, gazing, imagining scenarios that spin into tales of now-familiar Antonioni style and presentation. Wim Wenders help cut this film and certainly had a hand in its direction but one has to say, after all, that Antonioni is responsible. He is, like De Kooning doing De Kooning, doing Antonioni. Some of the actors are also straining to do Antonioni and it shows. Despite these shortcomings the handful of scenarios are haunting and the slow cadence of the unraveling of these lives is hypnotic. The film opens with a gorgeous scene of the director (Malkovich) driving through the fog-shrouded streets of Ferrara (one supposes) with strangers drifting through the fog. This seems the pictorial metaphor for the film as a whole.
Rating:
Summary: Cafe Emanuelle
Review: This movie is about various beautiful young European women who glimpse various balding, middle-aged American men and fall madly in lust with them, pursuing them across rain-swept fishing villages and quaint cafes until the men finally give in and take them home. This would have been a good formula if the film had been directed by Ron Jeremy, but as it is it's a humiliation. However, it could be edited down to eight minutes of high-grade nudity.
Rating:
Summary: Beyond the Clouds
Review: This summer I read Nathaniel Dorsky's book "Devotional Cinema" and looked at many of the movies he regards as being capable of getting us in touch with our deeper human nature. Among those mentioned were several Antonioni films that have to do with the relationship between men and women. In "La Notte" of crucial importance to the male writer depicted in the movie is woman as muse.
Antonioni revists this theme in "Beyond the Clouds" as he shows how he goes about the creative process of making a film. The sequence of roles played by the women in the different relationships depicted is fascinating. I suggest watching the movie several times and reading Mr. Dorsky's book to get the most out of this gem.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Time.....
Review: Unless you want to see a film with beautiful locales which this film gets an "A" for, this is too long a film to sit through. There are 4 stories, one of which you are to believe John Malkovich as a sex symbol. His contribution to the picture is to have the most beautiful woman in the film dying for his body, before he even makes an offer, and then after he beds her, he waves b-bye to her as he's passing outside her window. Oh, puh-leez. I wanted to see this film because Vincent Perez, who played a shipwrecked Russian in "Swept from the Sea", (an absolutely brilliant 5 star movie I highly recommend. Ian McKlennon and Rachel Weisz are great in it too.), is in this movie. Unfortunately, his part is not romantic. The gorgeous man in the first story is also a tease. Neither of these beautiful men ever completes a lovescene. (With such ridiculous writing, they could at least give us that!) Therefore, those of you ladies (and gentlemen who appreciate gorgeous men) will feel a bit cheated. The females in the movie are just there to be naked and beautiful - which they do well, don't get me wrong! But they seem to be too willing to go with the flow. I'm a fan of foreign film but this one will make you say "you must be kidding" too many times with its canned monologue.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Time.....
Review: Unless you want to see a film with beautiful locales which this film gets an "A" for, this is too long a film to sit through. There are 4 stories, one of which you are to believe John Malkovich as a sex symbol. His contribution to the picture is to have the most beautiful woman in the film dying for his body, before he even makes an offer, and then after he beds her, he waves b-bye to her as he's passing outside her window. Oh, puh-leez. I wanted to see this film because Vincent Perez, who played a shipwrecked Russian in "Swept from the Sea", (an absolutely brilliant 5 star movie I highly recommend. Ian McKlennon and Rachel Weisz are great in it too.), is in this movie. Unfortunately, his part is not romantic. The gorgeous man in the first story is also a tease. Neither of these beautiful men ever completes a lovescene. (With such ridiculous writing, they could at least give us that!) Therefore, those of you ladies (and gentlemen who appreciate gorgeous men) will feel a bit cheated. The females in the movie are just there to be naked and beautiful - which they do well, don't get me wrong! But they seem to be too willing to go with the flow. I'm a fan of foreign film but this one will make you say "you must be kidding" too many times with its canned monologue.
Rating:
Summary: Beyond my comprehension
Review: Visually this film is very attractive, with beautiful shots of a lakeside village and very atmospheric shots of alleyways and streets in rain and mist. But when it comes to the actions and motivations of the people in the film I lost patience. I like to believe in and identify with the characters, and in this film I found that impossible. There are four stories and I will mention only two - the two that seems to me the most bizarre and pointless. The first story stars two extremely good-looking newcomers to the screen (Rossi Stuart & Ines Sastre). He stops his car to ask her the way to the nearest hotel; and, presumably because he is so good-looking, she gives him the name of her hotel. They see each other during the day. and when they retire to their rooms at night across the landing from each other, she lies awake waiting for the knock on the door that never comes. In the morning she leaves early without seeing him. It is two years before they see each other again, and this time their relationship progresses a little further - they get to be naked on the bed together.
But he behaves in a very odd way indeed; for some five minutes he runs his hands over her body within a millimetre of her skin, but without actually touching her. What she thinks is going on as she lies there feeling nothing, is anybody's guess. Then, after five minutes, still without having touched her, he gets up abruptly and without speaking a word, leaves. I ask you; is that the action of a sane man? You wonder why he bothered to take his clothes off if he intended to do so little. She, presumably feeling hurt and frustrated, rushes to the window to see him walking off into the distance. They give each other a feeble wave. End of story. John Malkovich's deep, lugubrious voice-over tells us he behaved in this way either because of folly or pride. Well it was certainly folly and certainly unbelievable. In the other story, Malkovich's character is attracted to a young woman (Sophia Marceau) he sees in a shop window. He can't take his eyes off her and just stands there entranced. She responds in the same way. He goes into the shop and their mutual and silent fascination continues. I felt uncomfortable for both of them. Was something momentous about to happen? It would seem so and our interest is awakened, our expectations aroused. But no, we are just being led up the garden path.
He sits outside and eventually she joins him. She tells him only one thing about herself; that she has murdered her father by stabbing him twelve times. Malkovich's character shows no surprise and the fact seems irrelevant. They then go to her place and they have sex. But this is not the beginning of some deep and meaningful relationship. Oh no. When he's had his sex he's had enough, and, like the previous male protagonist, he just walks away. Another wretched piece of behaviour and another let down. The point? I wish I new.
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