The Sheltering Sky

Port and Kit Moresby arrive in North Africa from New York in 1947, ten years married and not touching each other. Their friend Tunner is with them. They insist they are travellers rather than tourists and push further into the desert. The point was to save the marriage; the desert does not fix it, it only speeds it up. When Port falls ill Kit is left alone and, instead of turning back, goes deeper in. Bernardo Bertolucci directed and co-wrote. The source is Paul Bowles's 1949 novel. Debra Winger plays Kit, John Malkovich plays Port and Campbell Scott plays Tunner. Vittorio Storaro shot it and Ryuichi Sakamoto wrote the score. The most striking casting choice is the author himself. Paul Bowles appears as the narrator; we hear his voice while his lips never move, and he is never identified. For anyone who does not know the book, the old man in the cafe stays unexplained. It was shot in Morocco and Algeria, in the Sahara. Who it is for: viewers who like desert landscape, Storaro's images and slow relational collapse. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for interiority. The power of the novel was inside the characters' heads and the film cannot get there, settling for looking from outside.