Al di là delle nuvole / Beyond The Clouds

John Malkovich, Sophie Marceau, Peter Weller, Fanny Ardant, Jean Reno, Irene Jacob, Vincent Perez, Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau. Add to this two brilliant directors of different generations: Michelangelo Antonioni and Wim Wenders. There you have, a perfect recipe for a perfect movie.


Beyond The Clouds is not perfect in a traditional sense. What makes it more than just a notable work is that it shows how a director who once knew everything, or at least thought that he knew everything, has become so inconclusive, suggesting answers but never giving in a precise judgement; a change that probably occurred by getting so close to death - Antonioni had a stroke in 1985 which left him mute and paralyzed. His own physical silence at the time reflects to the general mood of the movie; it is the director's "looking", what we see. The film is co-directed by Wim Wenders, helped by Antonioni's wife, in order to establish the verbal communication between Antonioni and the rest.



One of the last movies of Michelangelo Antonioni who died in 2007, Beyond The Clouds is composed of 4 short stories, in 4 different cities in Italy and France, about love, about connection and disconnection, conclusiveness and inconclusiveness. The stories are interlinked, though loosely, by Antonioni's surrogate John Malkovich, going to those places and narrating while taking photos and being involved in one of the stories himself. The first story is about a young couple, though never being a real couple, in Ferrara, almost having a love affair. It is followed by the director's own story, in picturesque Portofino, where he is taken by - and takes - a young shopkeeper girl, who has a secret in her recent past. Third story is in Paris, and is about a man who is torn between his wife and his lover; his wife leaves him at the end, meeting another man in a somewhat same condition. Finally, we wander around the narrow streets of Aix-en-Provence, with a young man desperately trying to connect with a young woman who is completely taken away by her faith - and love - for God.


Michelangelo Antonioni had been criticized by many critics as being too pretentious in most of his works. This is true in many senses, for even some of his most famous works, however, I would take this one as an exception. Beyond The Clouds has a sensitive touch in your heart, the somewhat rare dialogues are of little or no importance, the beautiful scenery, perfect cinematography and the views and occasions of contrast leaves you with a complete serenity; the vitality of the mistress' apartment contrasts with that of cold modernity of the married couple, the beautiful cathedral choir is a sanctuary from the rainy texture of the cobbled street. What Antonioni suggests is that the same stories will go on behind the surfaces, behind those silences; he certainly had been, at the last stage of his life, inconclusive about connections.


It is a rather ironic fact that Michelangelo Antonioni shares the same date of death - 30 July, 2007 - with another extraordinary director of all times, Ingmar Bergman, who had criticized him maybe the most during his whole life time.