Beyond The Clouds (Al di là delle nuvole) (1995)

65% of critics liked it
(20 reviews)
67% of users liked it
(3,702 ratings)

The many ways in which men are fascinated, compelled, and confused by their attraction to women are explored in this four part drama. As a filmmaker (John Malkovich) tries to sort out his plans for his next film, he considers several stories about women and the men who love them. Silvano (Kim Rossi… More The many ways in which men are fascinated, compelled, and confused by their attraction to women are explored in this four part drama. As a filmmaker (John Malkovich) tries to sort out his plans for his next film, he considers several stories about women and the men who love them. Silvano (Kim Rossi Stuart) meets Carmen (Ines Sastre) and immediately asks her for a date, but despite his attraction, he can't follow through on his feelings for her. The director spies a woman on the streets (Sophie Marceau) and follows her obsessively, but when he finally meets her, he's disappointed, despite their mutual physical attraction. Roberto (Peter Weller) and his wife Patricia (Fanny Ardant) have to deal with their anger about each other's infidelities, as well as their problems with their lovers, Olga (Chiara Caselli) and Carlo (Jean Reno). And Niccolo (Vincent Perez) falls in love at first sight with a young woman (Irene Jacob), unaware that she is studying to become a nun. Par-Dela Les Nuages was Michelangelo Antonioni's first film after a massive stroke derailed his directorial career in 1985; Wim Wenders served as his collaborator on the project. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Directed By: Michelangelo Antonioni, Wim Wenders
Written By: Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra, Wim Wenders
Genres: Drama, Romance, Art House & International

In Theaters: Oct 27, 1995 Wide
On DVD: Aug 22, 2000
Studio: Sceneries

Critic Reviews

, Time Out
It makes for entrancing cinema.
Stephen Holden, New York Times
There are moments of such astounding visual power in Michelangelo Antonioni's film Beyond the Clouds that you are all but transported through the screen to a place where the physical and emotional weather fuse into a palpable sadness.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
There are a lot of beautiful things in Beyond the Clouds: the style, the settings, the bodies of young men and women-many of them beautiful in the vaguely blank way that models are.
Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle
It's [the] compelling sense of mystery, of the endless search and its undercurrent of loneliness, that sets this great filmmaker apart.
Michael Atkinson, Village Voice
Antonioni's dreamy, pretentious fickle-finger-of-fate mini-tales struggle to wrestle with love and desire, but truck in adolescent ideas and delight in nothing so much as undressing their many young actresses.
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com
Though not vintage Antonioni, this later work (supervised by Wim Wenders), a meditation on eros, love, and desire, features some of the most beautiful actresses working today: Fanny Ardant, Irene Jacob, and Sophie Marceau.
Peter Henne, Film Journal International
Antonioni seems to be using his absence from the scene as an opportunity to restate his vision, perhaps having a new generation of filmgoers in mind.
, TV Guide's Movie Guide
One of Fanny Ardant's lines sums up the rest of Beyond the Clouds: 'Everything seems ridiculous.'
Michael E. Grost, Classic Film and Television
Delightful recent film showing Antonioni's visual style.
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com
We find we're lucky enough if we can just get one story out of this two-hour ordeal, which wanders aimlessly in art-house hell as often as it enchants.
Greg Muskewitz, eFilmCritic.com
A bit dreamy, but in the way that leads to a doze.
Christabel Padmore, Apollo Guide
Everybody likes a pretty face, but when it comes right down to the nitty-gritty, Beyond the Clouds lacks substance.
Bridget Byrne, Boxoffice Magazine
Musing on the power of inner thought and imagination, the film is far from deep, but instead feels superficial and one-dimensional.
Jean Lowerison, San Diego Metropolitan
See this film. It may be Antonioni's last.
Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
Beyond the Clouds is a magnificent coda to a career spent excavating images and probing the silences that exist between people.
Brent Simon, Entertainment Today
While famous for crafting films about incommunicability and alienation, Antonioni here delivers one that simply communicates nothing at all.
, Empire Magazine
A wasted opportunity.
Steve Rhodes, Internet Reviews
A slightly erotic and decidedly offbeat movie, Beyond the Clouds has a strong attraction that is hard to put into words. A frustrating film, it is simultaneously bizarrely fascinating and soporifically unsatisfying.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
It is in the enigma of what it is the lovers want or why they are compelled to want certain things that makes this a fascinating film.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
The moments that work in this movie (and there are many) remind us that most other films of today still have a long way to go.

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Eric B

At best, "Beyond the Clouds" is a multi-angled look at the delicacy of romance. At worst, it's like Antonioni channeling Zalman King. Just another made-for-cable softcore flick. The corny use of mood music -- including poor Van Morrison -- doesn't help, and is… More
At best, "Beyond the Clouds" is a multi-angled look at the delicacy of romance. At worst, it's like Antonioni channeling Zalman King. Just another made-for-cable softcore flick. The corny use of mood music -- including poor Van Morrison -- doesn't help, and is truly appalling at times. In what may be his most embarrassing role since "Making Mr. Right," John Malkovich plays an American director wandering the rustic streets of Italy, seeking inspiration for his next film. He doesn't have many lines, and mostly just looks vacantly inquiring. This simple premise provides the framework for observing various romantic vignettes -- five central ones, plus a short, sentimental scene with old pros Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau. Typically for Antonioni, none of the segments except the last one (starring Irene Jacob as a pious woman being pursued by an oily suitor) have any real payoff. The stories just drift into view, then fade away again. Peter Weller and Jean Reno add further star charisma, but not much else. In this artificial world, sexual chemistry between strangers is a given, mainly based on heavy breathing, solemn walks, ponderous gazes and stilted philosophical musings such as "Voices never become part of you like other sounds" and "It's strange -- we always want to live in someone's imagination." Otherwise, the motivations for hopping into bed can be hard to understand, particularly in the case of world-class beauty Sophie Marceau being immediately drawn to pale, wormy Malkovich. Marceau's sequence is the lamest of all, but its gratuitous nudity will please...well, just about anyone who enjoys looking at naked women. In particular, there is one needless, lingering shot of a full-frontal Marceau which is pure cheesecake. Thank you, Signore Antonioni! At least two other slim beauties parade their physical charms, but it's minor compensation. Arguably, the film's best (and most "Antonioni-esque") moment is a solitary scene with Malkovich reflecting at an overcast beach, where ocean waves and wind-swept sand magically blend into one eerie landscape. Gorgeous. Eventually, Malkovich's character wraps up the action by noting "The director's profession is a very particular one." It's hard to think of a movie with a worse final tag line.

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Beyond The Clouds (Al di là delle nuvole) (1995)

Critic Reviews

Featured Audience Ratings

Eric B

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