A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

With more than a touch of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA about it, in its use of stunningly photographed sequences in the Sahara Desert, THE SHELTERING SKY is a sympathetic study of three characters burdened by emotional as well as physical baggage. Director Bernardo Bertolucci includes several sequences of Port Moresby (John Malkovich), his wife Kit (Debra Winger), and their acquaintance George Tunner (Campbell Scott) packing and unpacking their massive trunks as they move from place to place; their cumbersome lifestyles contrasting starkly with those of the local inhabitants. The contrast is emphasized later on in the film, when Kit travels alone across the desert with a group of nomads who manage to carry everything on their camels' backs. The emotional baggage that blights the protagonists' lives manifests itself in a restless desire to move from place to place; it seems that Port will never be happy anywhere. He is perpetually in search of something, but has little or no idea what it is; the only way he can deal with this is to indulge in visceral pleasures such as spending a night with a prostitute just outside Tangier, or paying some locals to make music while he lies sick on the ground with typhoid fever. Kit seems to be more level-headed, but even she sacrifices her self-control in favor of sexual gratification while imprisoned by the nomads. The film begins with Port insisting that he and his wife, unlike Tunner, are "travelers," not "tourists": whereas Tunner might be likely to return home after a period of time, Port and Kit are sufficiently au fait with African life to stay much longer - maybe even live there permanently. As the action unfolds, however, we understand that this is nothing more than an empty statement: Port and Kit will always remain outsiders, not so much because of their skin color, but because they are unable to adapt themselves to the rhythms of African life. They will always remain outsiders. Tunner remains a peripheral figure; while trying his best to conduct a clandestine love-affair with Kit, it's clear that he does not understand how African life, if lived to the full, can prove a life-changing experience. This is illustrated in the film's final moments where he hopes that Kit will be restored to him, yet discovers to his cost that she has wandered off.The author of the source-text Paul Bowles appears in the film, as well as acting as an off-screen narrator. While sympathizing with his characters, it's clear that he is as much of an outsider as Kit; he sits on his own in a Tangier café, observing what is going on without becoming involved. He pronounces judgment on the characters' foibles, yet seems unable (or unwilling) to offer any solution to their emotional predicament. Perhaps there is no solution - as a long-time resident of Tangier, as well as other places in Africa, Bowles was well-placed to understand precisely how westerners could (or could not) adapt to unfamiliar surroundings.THE SHELTERING SKY is not without its orientalist elements: the nomad men are portrayed as savage, enjoying the unexpected pleasure of a white woman in a plot-line that would not seem out of place in early twentieth century "White Sheik" romances that proved so popular with western audiences. On the other hand, Bertolucci seems determined to treat his characters sympathetically, as people quite literally swallowed up by the desert landscape. This is underlined in several shots where the protagonists are shown in long-shot set against the desert, mere specks on the horizon.

Not exactly a Biopic in the proper sense of the word, but an adaption of the autobiographical and massively dramatised novel by the American author, composer and translator Paul Frederic Bowles (December 30, 1910 – November 18, 1999). In 1947 Bowles settled in Morocco, with his wife, Jane Bowles (February 22, 1917 – May 4, 1973) who was an American writer and playwright in her own right. Not having read the book, it's too difficult to me to comment on its truthfulness, however we know that Paul Bowles was cooperating with the screenwriters, it is he who is narrating the film and even appears in a cameo role. It's the story about a couple's search for stimulation not only within their fading passion and closeness but also for their creativity and productivity. Ultimately, from the personal point of view, this turns out to be a sad enterprise, thinking that the constant traveling and external visual changes would rekindle their evaporated love and disconnection; it's a shortsighted forced-upon chase after illusions. John Malkovich and Debra Winger are not the usual Hollywood-like physically attractive love couple 'a la Barbie and Ken' nevertheless it was beautifully exciting to watch them perpetually connect and disconnect mentally and physically. As soon as the protagonist dies, that's when the biopic turns into fiction, as Bowles kept on living till 1999. I was wondering if he wrote this scenario as a sort of a metaphor reflecting on his own life and dismantling relationship.From the famous and truly extraordinary Italian cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro's view, this is a declaration of love to Morocco and its impressive and breathtaking landscapes, culture and nomadic life; a magnificent visual feast and one may even smell all the spices, swatting flies, feel the grit of sand between the teeth, start sweating and get one's blood boiling, not only due to the local heat but also to the carnal sultriness, whilst watching the screen! Full frontal nudity and a few sensual yet tasteful very erotic scenes and therefore I rate it 16+.The gorgeous main-theme of the soundtrack is a total tearjerker to me...for sentimentalists only!Noticed that they drink a lot of MUMM Champagne, oh! how French, and that Eric Vu-An, famous Ballet dancer and ex Etoile de L'Opera de Paris had a secondary very seductive role in this typical Bertolucci epic.

I'm truly disappointed with this film, not in the sense of throwing something to the screen or cursing everybody involved, but in the sense of almost crying simply because when you heard the names Bertolucci-Winger-Malkovich altogether you want to buy the DVD, buy popcorn and more just to see how wonderful this is and the final result is a big empty in their lives and almost a waste of our time. "The Sheltering Sky" is like a great body without a soul, a tragedy. What's the point of having the most dazzling and beautiful cinematography of all when you don't have a story to tell, don't have something to say and a purpose? Nothing. It knows how to relax your eyes both in a good and bad way; the good way being the most fantastic images and scenarios you'll ever gonna see; in the bad way because after one hour it starts to get boring, tiresome, pointless and it goes nowhere. Again, here's a story of people from the high class world (played by John Malkovich, Debra Winger, Campbell Scott and others) that seems to find a beautiful and intriguing place to live in Morocco, Africa, to finally realize that life's not that easy in places like this. If the main premise of the film was to show the difference between travelers and tourists then what I saw was that travelers are dumber than tourists who simply enjoy all the things of a foreign country and then they'll turn back home (as Winger explains in the beginning tourists go into a journey thinking of returning home right after they got in the new place). The tourists will have bad luck, all kinds of disease, infidelity affairs and other bad things.It is a good film to look at it, its visual, locations, culture, you feel in a different place, but in terms of story it's very empty, with no profundity at all. I expected more from Bertolucci and this film. But when your previous film win 9 Oscars and it's a art and historical masterpiece called "The Last Emperor" is very difficult to quite recover from there, to release something that touches the same grandiosity. "The Sheltering Sky" tries to be an epic but fails by being meaningless, just images and bored talks between characters. I'm not gonna say nothing about the performances because they weren't good neither bad, just too low considering other works. Gladly I haven't bought the DVD, but sometimes I wish because the images presented are so unique and wonderful that you simply have to watch it and try to hold it in your mind, for relaxations purposes. Weak, weak, weak. 4/10

Have you ever had one of those nights where you couldn't sleep? You wake up tired, but you know you have to go to work the next day. Everything you do makes you tired, but you must press on. That's the feeling I got from this film. Fatigue. As Winger and Malkovich make their respective ways through the Saharan obstacle course, I wonder what horror is around the next corner. Ultimately, we need to ask the question, "Why are they there." The ennui they represent is hard to fathom. They have bought into this mess and have no intention of leaving it. The characters are exhausting in that they are reckless. They put themselves in constant danger. I guess it's to experience something that will bring them out of their self imposed comas. The acting is excellent; the scenery phenomenal. I felt like I was riding along with them on those awful buses. At some point, I guess, Debra Winger's character has some sort of epiphany and sexual fulfillment, but what lies ahead. Exhausting!