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At the heart of the human condition lies a vast emptiness. An emptiness that we try to fill with the things of life….actions,events,people,memories…. Here on the physical plane, the closest manifestation of that endless expanse is the desert, where shamans, mystics and truth seekers of all persuasions have gone since the beginning of time to be one with all that is and all that will be. Somehow the desert has an uncanny power to merge all vestiges of the past, present and future until it is simply beheld as an absolute. ‘The Sheltering Sky’ manages to capture this ephemeral and intangible quality in a way that has seldom been seen before.

The legendary director-cinematographer team that gave us seminal and historic works like ‘Il Conformista’, ‘Last Tango in Paris’ and ‘The Last Emperor’ , in the early nineties created a lush Moroccan dreamscape adapted from a book with the same name by Paul Bowles. With this film, Bernardo Bertolucci and Vitorio Storaro have paid homage to the mesmerizing world of the north African Sahara as only they could. Under Storaro’s incredible vision, the desert comes alive in a magnificent palette of sepia, gold, orange and blue, in a way that it never has since. The term ‘painting with light’ coined by Storaro has seldom resonated more than in ‘The Sheltering Sky’. The endless, hypnotic tapestry of giant sand dunes, camels and ancient stone cities all awash in the unrelenting sun or the narcotic moonlight become a central character in the film, so dominating is their presence, to a point where protagonists John Malkovich and Debra Winger almost have to surrender their identities and merge with the ageless wonder all around them. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s uplifting ,eclectic and innovative score gives the film a trancendent, tone poem quality that when combined with the majestic images make for a sensory feast.

Bertolucci directs his films with minimal interference from the spoken word, preferring to rely almost solely on raw, naked images and he has a worthy partner in Storaro, one of the most celebrated cinematographers of all time, the only one to create his own proprietary 35 mm aspect ratio format called ‘Univision’. These two have jointly and individually been responsible for creating some of cinema’s most cherished and acclaimed works. Indeed, ‘The Sheltering Sky’ stands as the definitive work on desert photography and is a truly immersive visual experience. A similarly breathtaking vision of the Saharan landscape was captured once before, in David Lean’s towering classic, ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, under the masterly eye of DP Freddie Young but sadly the world had to wait several decades before anything comparable was etched on celluloid.

It is Morocco circa 1949 and we meet the Moresbys, rivetingly essayed by Malkovich and Winger, who are on a prolonged holiday apparently to rekindle their fading marriage. At the outset it seems that the exotic temptations of Marrakesh are only dragging them further away from each other as Malkovich gets seduced by the undulating charms of a bewitching belly dancer and Winger soon falls prey to their young and libidinous travelling companion Tunner. A number of sequences are infused with an elemental sexuality, Bertolucci’s trademark, him being the director who brought blatant eroticism into the cinematic mainstream with ‘Last Tango in Paris’. One memorable scene takes place in the first quarter of the film when the couple make love on the edge of a sheer, high precipice, overlooking the vast immensity of the Sahara. This awesome setting literally and metaphorically seems to get the juices flowing as Malkovich shares existential insights with Winger during the act. “The sky here is so solid that there seems to be nothing behind it, or maybe it’s protecting us…’ he says. The union of a man and woman at the cradle of civilization, the cusp of sky and earth, where the endless, shifting red sands and cobalt skies seem to stretch out into eternity….could an image be more rife with metaphysical and existential symbolism? Through the passage of time and the haunting, surreal and constantly intruding tapestry of North Africa, the couple are able to find a mutual wordless respect that wasn’t there before, or perhaps had been suppressed and eroded by life in New York, where we are told they came from.

Bertolucci, one of the true auteurs of cinema, never subjugates the visceral image for the luxury of words, indeed words seem to be mere crutches in his attempt to capture the alchemy and fragility of human relationships and their role in the grand scheme of things. This is a journey that does not seem to have a beginning, middle or end, as conventional storytelling is supposed to. It is a journey into mystery,into madness, into the heart of the human condition, where absolutely anything can happen. It does not appear to be constrained by such humdrum notions as cause and effect. On their way to Sudan, Malkovich catches an unknown virus and eventually lapses into complete delirium which almost plays out like a stylistic device and allows the film to shed it’s last remaining vestiges of temporal integrity. He enters a trance-like, ecstatic state during an impromptu string and flute performance of the Bedouin and seems to be oblivious to the malaise that is driving him into the abyss. The couple have never been closer than they are here, at the edge of reality, but as the omnipotent hand of Fate would have it, he finally succumbs to the fever and is snatched away from her forever.

Winger is now on her own and paradoxically finds a kind of spiritual liberation in her overwhelming grief. For the first time in her life, she is completely unfettered by the shackles of civilization that have bound her for so long. She now has nothing to lose and goes forth deeper into the desert with a wandering tribe of Ber Bers. The Arab leader develops an infatuation with her and she does not do much to repel his advances. Eventually she merges with the wandering tribe and adopts their ways and look. After an arduous journey on camel back, they arrive at the village and she becomes the head’s fourth ‘bride’. The other three are not even sure that she’s a woman to begin with and wait outside the chief’s abode to find out…which they soon do when their vigorous lovemaking is graphically reported. The sex is completely spontaneous and organic with no constraints put on either of the participants and is captured beautifully through the unobtrusive yet intensely erotic lens of Vitorio Storaro.

Towards the end, a cultural faux pas in a crowded Arab bazaar puts an end to Winger’s dream-like odyssey through the all consuming desert and she soon finds herself back on familiar ground among fellow Westerners, at the settlement. She goes back to the cafe where they all used to sit in the beginning. The vagaries of time and fate have unfolded so effectively under the eye of this master helmer, that when we arrive at the final juncture, it seems she has been to the ends of the earth and back. Both the literal and symbolic journey are over for her. Maybe the role she has to play in the world of beings and things, actions and objects is now clearer to her. To put things in perspective, we see and hear the same aged narrator we came across in the beginning who leaves us with a hypnotic monotone ‘we think it’s all going to last forever, but in this lifetime we will experience maybe twenty more full moons and maybe two or three nights under the desert sky, and then it’s all over’.

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