Click image to purchase

Africa Italy Road Trips

The first observation that you might make about The Sheltering Sky is that it's a beautifully filmed movie. This begins with some nifty shots of New York City in what looks to be the twenties or thirties. According to Paul Bowles home page, this is based on his travels in Morocco and the North of Africa in the thirties. According to the film, this is set in the late forties.

Eventually, this montage of snippets, from throughout time, becomes focused on an ocean liner as it sails out to sea. Cut to a man's face. He's lying on his back with his head to the camera. His eyes open and he stares directly at us. Cut to a long shot of the ship, over the water, then back to a slow zoom away from the man in his bed. Cut to a woman in sunglasses as her head pops up on the other side of a landing. The woman's head is followed by the heads of several men. The camera sweeps across a very large crane, that towers over the slightly larger clearing it's standing in, then slowly moves down until the frame encompasses our party.

Cut to Kit Moresby {Debra Winger} as she affixes her "sun helmet" and to George Tunner {Campbell Scott} as he grins and takes photographs. The camera moves a bit further away and we watch a bit of conversation. Port Moresby {John Malkovich} manages to find many small children hidden within the base of the crane and we all happily begin to walk into town. Cut to the Port Authority where Port deals with the authority behind the screen in a slightly sarcastic manner: "Mr Tunner with be staying for a few weeks but Port and his wife will be here for a year or two". The authority seems to wonder why anyone would want to stay in Northern Africa at all.

Cut to large restaurant where Kit gets her shoes shined and complains about suffrage in Italy. While we're here, a lovely French Woman {Nicoletta Braschi} wanders in and flirts with George for a while as a voiceover tells a bit about this situation. Port tells us a little about his latest dream which causes Kit to slam the door behind her on her way out of the room. After we talk about her, behind her back, for a moment or two, she comes back into the room wearing a new set of sun goggles. An Eric Lyle {Timothy Spall} introduces himself and asks us for change. Our transaction is interrupted by the Harpy-like cries of Mrs. Lyle {Jill Bennett} who screeches at Eric for a moment or so.

Cut to the Grand Hotel where Kit and Port lounge in separate rooms and discuss Tunner for a few minutes. When Kit mentions that she doesn't trust the man, Port reacts badly and makes a noisy exit. Cut to Port as he wanders down North African streets at dusk. While sitting on a hillside above the city, Port is approached by a very nice man named Smail {Ben Smaïl}, who's dressed in robes and offers to take Port to a place where he can meet a very willing woman. Cut to Kit at the hotel then back to Port and Smail as they wander about the city in the dark.

At Mahrnia's {Amina Annabi} place, we give Smail his money and smoke for a second then the girl gets right down to business. When we steal our wallet back from Mahrnia, the girl gets positively vicious and we end up being chased by half of the city. Back at the hotel the next morning, Tunner is just leaving with Kit when we get in all covered with bruises. Dinner is in the dark because of the power outage. The following day, we head out on the road; Kit will be taking the train with George. Port will be riding in the car with the Lyle clan. The morning after, Kit and George wake up in bed together after a champagne fueled night. A bike ride in the desert seems to straighten things out between Kit and Port and things go a bit like a vacation for a while...

This begins as a long, cross-country road trip through the "wilds" of Africa that just ends up going horribly wrong; and not in the way you might expect that it will. Unfortunately, if I were to tell you more of the details of that, you'd know the whole story. Much of the impact of this is in how it's told. This is intense and depressing and cold and has definitely left me with a much better impression of both Malkovich and Winger than I'd held previously. My opinion of both performers was pretty high in the first place. Many of the sets are gorgeous and all of the camera work is; the direction really is incredible in this film. Much of this is shot in monotones or something very near to that with the blues of the desert at night and the red sands in the day. In addition to this, you get a tour of a few ancient cities and some that are just strange as hell, some nifty religious ceremonies and a pretty large helping of tastefully dealt with "sexuality". You might want to wait 'till the kids are in bed for this one anyway. I'm adding this to road trips, for some reason, though only a portion of it fits that classification.