oh dear

i figured out the reason why i waited so long to see ‘beyond the clouds’, and that is because, lurking somewhere inside of me was the conviction – i don’t really like antonioni. admittedly, i’ve only seen a few of his films, and i suppose i should really leave the jury out until i’ve at least seen ‘blow-up’. but this film didn’t make me feel too hopeful.

released in 1995 with an impressive cast, ‘beyond the clouds’ tells four stories loosely linked by the fact that the narrator is hanging around the edges of all of them, the narrator being john malkovich. and you can tell after about five minutes of this narration that you are not going to like the narrator. he’s annoying, egotistical, and obtuse, and on top of that, he quotes joyce. it’s pretty pretentious.

the stories are as follows – 1. gorgeous yet bland italian pair meet, don’t sleep together, meet again, almost sleep together, part ways. and that’s about it for the first story. 2. malkovich follows sophie marceau to her place of work. she looks angry, tells him that she stabbed her father twelve times. moving on. 3. skeevy, tan american guy meets weird, nubile italian girl in café. they sleep together for three years, oops, he’s married to fanny ardant. he cheerfully lies to them both. fanny moves out and wants to buy an apartment that jean reno (with an unfortunate mustache) is unaware that his wife is selling. 4. jeanne moreau and marcello mastroianni make brief appearances, as if they are aware that they belong in a better picture than this. then vincent perez falls immediately for irene jacob, a pious catholic he happens to bump into. the fourth story is really the only one that i found interesting at all, maybe because the events going on actually had reasons behind them.

the whole thing is just far too impressed with itself and its artsiness. it’s very pretty, i’ll give it that. italy usually is. but the prettiness can’t make up for the vapidity and eventual boredom that this film causes. i found myself wishing that antonioni had let wim wenders contribute a little more, as he apparently was intending too before antonioni rejected all of his scenes. which seems like something malkovich’s character would do. just a very thin piece of filmmaking.