"The Sheltering Sky" (1990)

Tunner, we're not tourists. We're travelers

In foreword to 1998 rerelease of «The Sheltering Sky» Paul Bowles wrote not-so-praising words about screen adaption of this book, done by Bernardo Bertolucci, summarizing them by those words: «But the less said about the film now, the better». Bernardo Bertolucci, recalling the experience of making «The Conformist» - an adaptation of the same titled novel by Alberto Moravia, said, that sometimes necessary to «betray» the book in order to make the film faithful to it. «The Conformist» was such good betrayal, that it even surpassed the book. Could we say the same words about «The Sheltering Sky»?

In the early 1980s, Bernardo Bertolucci was in a state of the great artistic crisis and in order to overcome it, he went to LA in order to fulfill his old dream – to make an adaptation of «Red Harvest» by Dashiell Hammett. After spending four fruitless years in LA, Bertolucci went to, back then the most unusual place, China. In this country, he regained inspiration and made «The Last Emperor». And the most important of all, after visiting China Bertolucci started again to love the West. So, the story about a couple, which travels to Sahara, in order to repair the marriage, seemed interesting to the Director.

Paul Bowles book is quite hard to adapt as a standard two-hour film. «The Sheltering Sky» is full of stories and important dialogues, which all should be adapted in the film. And, finally, the director must picture the alienation of two Americans in alien and hostile Sahara, which destroy any intruder. Before watching, I thought, that Bertolucci would be able to pull it off.

In the beginning of the novel, an Arab Smail tells Port Moresby a parable about three Arab girls, who are desiring to drink tea on the highest dune of Sahara (which were not, strangely, integrated in the film). They were able to get to the highest dune of Sahara and have decided to get a little sleep before tea. A few weeks later, a passing caravan found three dead girls and their cups were full of sand.

Port and Kit Moresby are the representatives of NYC intellectual bohemians. Port is a composer; Kit is a playwright. Their feelings have ceded and Port, hoping to breathe new life into dying marriage, convinces Kit to take a trip to the Northern Africa. Tunner forces himself as a companion on the trip, and they start their trip. After getting rid of Tunner, Port takes Kit to the heart of Sahara, but he gets a typhoid fever.

In the beginning of «Lawrence of Arabia», Diplomat Dryden tell to Lieutenant Lawrence the following words: « Lawrence, only two kinds of creatures get fun in the desert: Bedouins and gods, and you're neither». Port thinks that the desert would purify him, and after crossing it with Kit, they would emerge as new people, who love each other. In order to achieve this, Port even agrees to forfeit his identity. In reality, the desert would do anything to destroy the aliens.

Sadly, Bernardo Bertolucci was not able to completely portray the ideas of Paul Bowles. While watching, you constantly feel, that the film lacks something, which makes it great, compared to «The Last Emperor». The Director focuses on a theme of combatting the family crisis and basically kept out such themes, as the said «three sisters» parable, clash between European, American and Arab culture and threw away a certain amount of secondary characters.

Another substantial weakness of «The Sheltering Sky» is a choice of an actress for the role of Kit. While Debra Winger is assisted by John Malkovich, she is quite OK. But in the third part of novel, Kit steps out and Debra Winger is not too convincing.  That is why, the process of Kit’s spiritual degradation is not portrayed good enough. Despite that, the other actors filled their roles quite convincingly.

Despite the flaws of meaning, the form is beyond all praise. Bernardo Bertolucci was able to capture a very beautiful shots of desert , which is ruthless and hostile for strangers, and views of shabby Arab towns, full of flies and beggars. Ryuichi Sakamoto soundtrack deserves a separate mention. His music tunes a viewer to a right wave, which is never quite fully emerges.

The best films of Bertolucci are visually and intellectually stunning. Sadly, this time, the visual thing has prevailed over the intellectual one, and that is why the film is weaker than the best films of Bertolucci. Despite that, I don’t agree with Paul Bowles critique and I consider this film as worthy of watching, but I recommend you to read the book before that.