Beyond the Clouds

Peter Weller and Chiara Caselli

Michelangelo Antonioni's Beyond the Clouds, released in late 1995, is a film about interlocking sexual entanglements set in four different European locales. The picture was based on a book of short stories Antonioni published in 1983 entitled That Bowling Alley on the Tiber. In 1985, Antonioni suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed till the end of his days. He was only able to make Beyond the Clouds with the assistance of Wim Wenders, though their relationship was somewhat contentious. Wenders added binding episodes and narration featuring John Malkovich as a traveling director musing on love and life. Antonioni was able to jettison some of the scenes featuring Malkovich, but not all of them. Similarly, sequences featuring Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau were shot by Wenders, but only a single scene remains. The scene offers a self-reflexive take on artistry invoking Cézanne. The question raised is whether an artist repeats himself. Wenders, the auteur, admits that it is inevitable.

The other element that smacks more of Wenders than Antonioni is the soundtrack, the presence of U2 being the tell. It didn't work for me, especially the instrumental Van Morrison numbers used as love motifs. They are too sentimental for an Antonioni picture, even an autumnal one, and I count myself a Van Morrison fan. Wenders was able to prevail upon Antonioni to trim some of the sex scenes, particularly one of Peter Weller going down on Chiara Caselli. Even so, some observers, like Michael Atkinson of the Village Voice, found the amount of young female flesh on display to be gratuitous. It does seem like every female actress under forty gets totally nekkid in this flick. I am a little more tolerant of this than Mr. Atkinson. Seniors should be indulged their erotic reveries since some of them can only dream rather than do.

Vincent Perez and Irène Jacob

What is best about Beyond the Clouds and most distinctively Antonionian is its mise-en-scène. The film is otherworldly gorgeous. Lovers tease each other as they walk down ancient streets and foggy corridors pitched on the edge of oblivion. The eternal recurrence of romance, its ebb and flow, is evoked through water imagery. Parting and its sweet ache are memorably evoked. What is most uneven about the film is the acting. It is as if the players hit their marks and then could do what they want. Malkovich is fine and Irène Jacob is sublime. Jean Reno is wasted as are Mastroianni and Moreau. Peter Weller and Chiara Caselli show great charm. Kim Rossi Stuart and Inés Sastre are as charmless and at sea as Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin in Zabriskie Point. Sophie Marceau looks great, but her performance is deplorable. I broke out laughing when her character claimed to have stabbed her father twelve times. I was not convinced. Similarly, Fanny Ardant muffs her drunk scene. Lovers of Mr. Antonioni's work should see Beyond the Clouds, others may be baffled.