hyped garbage

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

I discovered this hidden pearl thanks to U2 album Passengers: as they did 2 songs for the movie (beach sequence & blue room), i took a look and the first segment is so incredible, i cut it like a whole movie for me. Two young adults fell in love in the old historical and mysterious Italian town of Ferrara, during a misty winter... Even if they try two times, they can't achieve to make love and however they are deeply connected. I like this kind of romance because it's true that in a way our imaginary stories are better than the real thing! At this time, i was mesmerized by the softness and candor of Ines Sastres and except being a model for Lancome, i have never meet her again. In all cases, their story really grew on me that i read Antonioni original short story and Wender backstage book... Anyway this segment is still very moving to watch over and over: i like this simple, green motel, its small wooden rooms, the silence and quiet streets, its perspectives,...

Some people do not catch Antonioni. He is one among a very few - less than 50 - capable of magic, even, as he likes to do, when "nothing" happens, or so little. In a way he is very close to the Japanese masters. In fact, since he left neorealism in the 60s, he has ever since shown us the deep fabric of reality that is, the artistic core of every situation, where even the smallest most insignificant detail can open the door to what is really happening. He shows us what really rules in telling a story, what really matters. In very short, you have to be a kind of genius to privilege eye contact and building a relationship over "knowing" (having the information) this young woman killed her father; and you have to be a wizard to make it shine this way. I can understand the joy of Wim Wenders producing this: after all he made "falsche bewegung" in search for something near. To those who don't get Antonioni yet, one must say: get better first and look closer!Maybe you can find just as good in another genre,etc, but his film needs a 10/10: in its kingdom, one cannot go higher, or better.

I haven't seen any other films by Antonioni and the people that saw this one with me agreed that it shares themes and imagery with the rest of his works. Maybe if I had seen other stuff by him I would have enjoyed this one, knowing what to expect. I saw it as an almost complete failure for so many reasons. First of all, the film introduces interesting, deep issues about social relationships, feelings, the nature of reality versus fiction, but this is very often done in the clumsiest of ways making the characters speak as if they were delivering speeches, rambling on and on, juxtaposing declarations rather than having dialogues. The scriptwriters seem to be so worried that we will not get the point that they prefer to tell instead of showing. Secondly, the movie has no rhythm, especially in its first half. It is not only that it is slow. Some slow films have been made with an excellent sense of pace and rhythm (El Sur by Victor Erice Or Scorsese's The Age of Innocence are examples I like), but for that to be successful it is necessary that we find the characters so engaging or the story so moving that we can adapt to it. This does not happen in Beyond the Clouds, where the first episode seems to drag endlessly, and the relationship between John Malkovich's "reality" and the love stories "fiction" is at times fluid, others abrupt, others confusing.

"Beyond the Clouds" is an over-the-top artsy group of four vignettes each a offering a glimpse into a man-woman relationship from the tenuous to the turbulent. Although the film offers superb cinematography, some exquisite visual beauty, and a cast of fine performers, there's little meat on the bones of this fragmented work. A taste of a relationship cannot impart the fullness of it and synergism suggests that much more can be accomplished with one story in 2 hours than with four. Nonetheless, "Beyond the Clouds" will be fodder for dilettantes and a visual feast for the all albeit superficial, stilted, and lacking in substance.