“Until the End of the World”: Why Wim Wenders’ Epic Road Movie is an Essential Vision of the Future

During this recent period of social isolation, with cinemas closing their doors around the world and an endless amount of streaming at our fingertips, many of us used this opportunity to dip into the backlog of films that we’ve been meaning to get to. With no obligation to be anywhere or see anyone, I decided that quarantine would be the perfect time to knock off one of the longest films on my watchlist, Wim Wenders’ 1991 film Until the End of the World. The film’s vision of the future is quite different from reality, but its themes of human connection in the face of worldwide disaster are deeply relevant, and I couldn’t help but feel it had come into my life at just the right moment (the only problem being it will make you really, REALLY want to travel).

I watched the 280-minute “trilogy cut”, which splits the film into three parts. Half by accident, I ended up watching each part in a different spot in my house — Part 1 on my TV, Part 2 at my desk and Part 3 in my bed — which somehow not only resulted in a cohesive experience, but also added an interesting dimension to my viewing. I’m glad it happened this way. Come at me, purists!

Even at 4 ½ hours, this film doesn’t feel anywhere near long enough. The word “overstuffed” doesn’t even begin to cut it (I managed to take three pages of notes during this, and I very rarely take any notes at all). If you know anything about this film, you likely know that it’s got a lot to offer:

Firstly, it’s a globe-trotting sci-fi odyssey — we travel to Venice, Paris, Berlin, Lisbon, Moscow, Beijing and Japan in the first 90 minutes alone, and we still have San Francisco and…Coober Pedy, South Australia (???!!!) to get to.

Secondly, it boasts what is in my opinion one of the coolest casts of all time — alongside Solveig Dolmartin (from Wings of Desire) we have Sam Neill, William Hurt, Swedish icon Max von Sydow, French icon Jeanne Moreau, German icon Rüdiger Vogler, Adelle Lutz (formerly married to David Byrne) and Certified National Treasures David Gulpilil, Ernie Dingo and Jimmy Little.

Thirdly, the soundtrack features music created specifically for the film by artists such as Talking Heads, CAN, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Lou Reed, Julee Cruise, Neneh Cherry, Crime & the City Solution, U2, Depeche Mode, k.d. lang, Elvis Costello (covering The Kinks), Peter Gabriel, R.E.M., Patti Smith, Robbie Robertson AND MORE.

Naturally, going in with all this in mind, my expectations were extraordinarily high. And boy, this film did not disappoint. I’m still not entirely sure if it amounts to anything more than the sum of its parts, but oh, what parts!

Here, Wim Wenders takes his trademark road movie approach to its (il)logical extreme; an international journey of apocalyptic proportions, both epic and intimate in scope, that has the spirit of travel and adventure baked into its DNA. My lord and saviour Robby Müller is once again behind the camera, and I have gushed in other reviews elsewhere about his uncanny ability to capture a sense of place, but it’s as important in this film as it is in any other (if not more so).

The first act jumps from one country to the next at impressive speed, threatening to become overwhelming by not giving us enough time in each place. But every location is rendered so uniquely, so magically, that the brisk rhythm of the film’s opening act never robs us of the chance to connect with each place. If you’ve ever travelled through many different countries in a short space of time like I have, you’ll know that such rapid movement creates a kind of dreamlike effect, each place blurs into the next, and you develop this strange feeling of transience, an awareness of your fleeting presence wherever you go. Well, this film conjures that feeling on a deep and primordial level.

I feel it’s significant that for essentially the first half of the film, almost all the places we visit are cities. These bustling hubs of people are the places most threatened by imminent worldwide disaster, epicentres for potential chaos. Already, the fear of doomsday is driving people from these “impact points”, and there is a reigning atmosphere of displacement. I kept thinking about two songs from Talking Heads’ Fear of Music:

“Cities”
“Find a city, find myself a city to live in…They go up north and come back south/Still got no idea where in the world they are”

and “Life During Wartime”
“Trouble in transit/Got through the roadblock/We blended in with the crowd”
(The whole post-apocalyptic tone of “Life During Wartime” pairs well in general.)

But what of the people in these places? Amongst the globe-trotting, is there any room for nuanced portrayal of cultures foreign to our protagonists? Initially, it doesn’t seem like it; the Beijing sequence and scenes in the Japanese mountains come across as slightly cringe-worthy in their broadness, and there’s a feeling of “otherness” to these scenes that felt uncomfortable to me. There’s a moment where our white protagonists find themselves “fulfilled” (to use the film’s word) by Oriental traditions, and I found that a little awkward. I was puzzled by all this because even though Wenders may not have an intimate understanding of these cultures, he is usually excellent at portraying nuanced interactions between different cultures, a key element in his work. Once the setting moves to Australia, however, Aboriginal people and tradition become an important part of the film and are treated with surprising sensitivity and depth, so much so that I feel maybe I’m misjudging some of the earlier scenes. But more on the Aboriginals later.

It’s fascinating — but certainly not surprising — that the feelings of transience, displacement and isolation (combined with the characters’ unsatisfied yearning for connection) are felt strongest in the film’s first half, with its urban, densely populated settings. The second half takes place almost entirely in the sparse environment of the Australian outback, and yet it is here that the sense of community and connection is most potent.

Human connection and communication are integral to the film — our desire for it, our inability to reach it, our violation of it. I won’t get too deep into the science-fiction elements because it’s exciting to watch that stuff unfold without knowledge of where it’s going to go, but many facets of human communication are explored in incredibly original and thought-provoking ways. The role of images and (more specifically) sight becomes the focus of the (admittedly somewhat unfocused) latter half. If you’re one of those people who sees every film as being about filmmaking itself, you’ll have a treat with this one. Even looking past all the symbolism, the increasingly abstract imagery of the second half is indescribably beautiful.

Passing images from one person to another, bringing sight to the blind, the continuing of stories; these are what form Claire and Sam’s mission — a mission more important than the end of the world itself. The world must not be allowed to grow dark; stories are all we have, and they must be passed on. Though while Claire and Sam may have the same objective — to pass images on to Sam’s blind mother — only Claire can succeed. Sam is filled with regret, grief and resentment towards his father, unable to communicate with either of his parents due to his strained past with them (“Mom and Pop/They will fuck you up”). Claire, however, is untethered from her past, looks to the future, and her pure soul feels an urge “to serve”. That is, to serve others than herself.

What really surprised me is the way the theme of technology vs. humanity is explored through the Aboriginal people in the story. As well as the broader criticism of colonialism in the name of “science” and “civilisation”, the threat of advanced image-replicating and potentially mind-altering technology on Aboriginal Dreaming is directly addressed. William Hurt gives an explanation of Dreamtime that is more poetic and elucidating than anything I was taught in school. The sense of place I keep going on about, that Wim Wenders and Robby Müller convey so vividly, is deeply interrelated with the Aboriginal concept of Country — that places have a story. All this risks being completely muddled in the mix of sci-fi and philosophical musings but I think it all falls into place. I have so much respect for a film that is daring enough to wrestle with such big ideas while still caring deeply about accurate and thoughtful representation.

In a scene towards the end, we’re presented with a white man teaching an Aboriginal man how to play the didgeridoo, the optics of which instantly struck me as being troublesome. But as the Aboriginal man begins to play the didgeridoo himself, I realised how this ties into the entire film and just how beautiful it is. The possession of things belonging to another — money, memories, cultural experiences — is a recurring concept throughout, and in this scene we are instead witnessing a return, the reclaiming of a belonging. But the important thing to understand here is that it’s a moment of connection between two people from different worlds. It’s not long before all the characters are singing and playing music together in the purest expression of human connection I can think of. People from across the world, coming together, sharing a space and song with each other. A moment of joy, even with the sorrow that immediately follows. One final party before the end of the world.

Transferring images to another and allowing them to share your experiences…travelling to another country and seeing new and foreign sights…it all relates to connection and communication. I feel these are at the core of every single Wenders movie, and basically any movie with a profound sense of place. Those movies where “the setting is a character”, deep down they are about our yearning for connection: to our environment and one another. We all want to find our place.

I feel as if I might be over-intellectualising all of this, so I do want to mention the vibes. This is not a film without quiet, meditative moments (on the contrary, there are many), but for the most part, there is a kind of manic energy that comes across, especially in the musical performance scene I talked about. That scene is a microcosm of what I imagine making this film to be like — just a bunch of cool people, hanging out, having fun making something together. It’s the same kind of delirious creativity and happiness that radiates from another film very dear to my heart: Wenders’ next feature, Faraway, So Close! (the sequel to Wings of Desire). Amongst all the existential pondering and Y2K anxiety, there’s plain wacky shit like a CGI bear bounty hunter and Vogler’s harmonica-playing private eye with his sick threads. There is a joy for living that pierces through the darkness and uncertainty of the world.

This all hits home especially hard given the current situation we live in. There is no single more prescient film to touch upon a state of international panic, the search for connection and the importance of communication. I can’t wait to see my friends again, to play music with strangers, and most of all to roam the world once more. This film gives me hope, and for that I am incredibly grateful.

Review by Shea Gallagher