The Sheltering Sky

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The Sheltering Sky

1990

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

A woman's dangerous and erotic journey...

An American couple drift toward emptiness in postwar North Africa.

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Batuhan Taşçılar
Review by Batuhan Taşçılar ★★★½ Liked 10

2 analyzes in English and Turkish

English:
The DVD of this magnificent film has been with me for years, and I’ve always wanted to watch it. This film kept me awake at night, lost in thought.

Before mentioning the plot:

The film is based on the novel of the same name by Paul Bowles, who also appears as the narrator. Released approximately forty-one years after the novel’s first publication in 1949, the film takes place in Morocco, where Bowles settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years until his death. Bowles wrote magnificent books that inspired such cinematic works, traveled alone, and led to the creation of this masterpiece. Produced with a significant budget of $25,000,000 for its time, the…

Neil Bahadur
Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★★ Liked 3

There's nothing particularly likeable about Port or Kit Morseby, nor really anyone in this movie, and Bertolucci starts his film with considerable emphasis on the "haute bourgeois-ness" of the couple, the pretentious 40s New York "artiste" of Malkovich's Port and his self-styled psuedo-Hemingway etiquette, and Winger's Kit, who privately espouts how much she hates philosophy to a colleague while her husband is away and more or less is just here because she's along for the ride until she has no choice not to be. When it's only Kit that's even left, she's left with the moon and the stars and flowers and even a different culture. She doesn't make this decision on her own (and even hates making them) but…

hazal
Review by hazal ½ 476

kul euzü birabbin nas melikin nas ilahin nas everytime i close my eyes it's like a dark paradise

Jake Cole
Review by Jake Cole ★★★★ 1

To travel the world in the hopes of finding yourself is merely an attempt to outrun your shadow. The opening distinction between "tourists" and "travelers" is merely a delineation of how fully you're willing to commit to this delusion, and though the white people can speak the language(s), they have no understanding of the places they visit and even less ability to wring any great truths of self. The extent to which this film is read as either a continuation of or reaction against Lawrence of Arabia does get at the ways in which the protagonists of both are spiritually unfulfilled and forever trapped by the exoticism they supposedly reject, but Bertolucci fascinatingly makes an intimate story out of an…

Marcissus
Review by Marcissus ★★★ 1

because neither of them lived the life of any kind of regularity, they both had made the fatal error of coming hazily to regard time as non existent. one year was like another. eventually everything would happen

Sun Tzu said to never back an American into a corner ... the trouble with Americans is they have portable corners and they bring them everywhere

Dave Taylor
Review by Dave Taylor ★★★

‘And the award for most unnecessary shot of a penis in a major motion picture goes to…John Malkovich in The Sheltering Sky.’

(Thunderous applause).

Cinematographer Vittorio Storato should have won an Oscar for being able to show the indescribable beauty and unimaginable living conditions of 1940’s Africa. Even though the movie itself lost me in its last half hour (where I’m sure the same section in the book was brilliant, but visuals alone weren’t enough to explain what the hell was going on), there are scenes from this that will stay with me forever.

Rocky🕵️🎞️
Review by Rocky🕵️🎞️ ★★★★½ Liked 4

I watched this film almost a week back, and I’m still kind of floating in that post film haze. It’s another Bertolucci film that got me curious enough to dive into the original novel.
The story itself is pretty minimal... a couple drifts through North Africa post-WWII, trying to escape, connect, figure themselves out... but what’s really happening is inside. It’s about feeling lost... emotionally and spiritually.
There are some ideas in this film that I think are really powerful -- the emptiness of modern life, cultural dislocation, the limits of love, the fragility of identity.
All big themes, but they’re not exactly handled with a light touch. It’s very slow and symbolic... very Antonioni
The best part of it…

htledger
Review by htledger ★★ 25

filmin 1 saati sevisme diger 1 saati colde yurumek kalan 17dkda ezan aq

sartre’nin bulantisindan yola cikilip guzel islenilmesi ve kuzey afrikanin sahranin sinematografisin hatrina

Thomas
Review by Thomas ★★★

Bernardo Bertolucci´s existential drama “The Sheltering Sky”, based on the novel of the same name (which I haven´t read), follows an American married couple on their journey through North Africa in 1947. They hope to rekindle their struggling marriage, while they contemplate on topics such as cross-cultural exploration, communication, self-discovery, love, sexuality, spirituality, alienation, solitude, civilization, nature, the human condition, and the meaning of life. Without saying too much, their journey doesn´t go as they planned it.

The gorgeous desert photography, immersive worldbuilding, hypnotic atmosphere, and beautiful score make the film worth watching but the fragmented, meandering narrative and unlikable as well as uninteresting characters made it difficult for me to get emotionally invested. I definitely don´t find the film as moving and thought-provoking as it should be. For me, it´s the definition of a beautiful boring movie.

Eli Hayes
Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½ Liked

"Ah the lengthening hours in the refinery
Belching fire into the sky
We do our best vampire routines
As we suck the dying hours dry
The night is lovely as a rose
If I see sunlight hit you
I am sure that we'll both decompose

"Ah the fitful sleep and the fire engines
That I dream of when I dream
Some day we'll both wake up for good
I will try hard not to scream
The evening wind will shake the blinds
You're stirring from your slumber
We've got something hateful on our minds

"Oh sing, sing, sing
For the dying of the day
Sing for the flames that will rip through here
And the smoke that will carry us away
Yeah sing for the damage we've done
And the worse things that we'll do
Open your mouth up and sing for me now
And I will sing for you"

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