Cosmin Erhan The Sheltering sky was considered a heavy book, heavy as importance, for the so called beat generation...so in my opinion, taking the story of Paul Bowles and adapting it to a movie was a real challenge...despite the simple storyline that everyone notices, the book/movie has deeper meanings...i watched the movie a lot of times and having read the book made me see better the B.Bertolucci hand...trying to create the place for actually an internal bleeding, a deep hurtful feeling, both Bowles and Bertolucci have to use the symbolism of the desert's vanity...and the inner searches go very well with the message of the traveler who refuses to be just a tourist, setting a line to separate the meaningful from the meaningless...READ the book and then be impressed by the adds that Bertolucci makes, just to give you a very personal approach... "You are so alone..."- a beautiful way to end the journey of Port, Kit and Tunner...

elshikh4 So what's it about ? Ahh, it's about how the world after WW2 is going to be without love. No. It's about the woman being treated unfairly in the west and the east. No. It's about the human being who can't find love yet; namely the desperate moment of living lonely whether with a dying educated who stopped making love, or a stud uncivilized who doesn't stop making love! At any rate, IT'S UNBEARABLE FILM. So it doesn't have the slightest ability to make me interest in whatever it says ! I didn't find anything interesting at all. I hated to see (Debra Winger), one of her generation's best actresses and beauties, in wasted time like this. The sufferance of her character was incredibly overmatched by ours during the watching. The pace is dead with nothing going on and long shots for the dark deserts. (Bernardo Bertolucci) fell in such a ridiculous love with the Arabian nights, shooting the moon from maybe 90 angles (these shots, great basis for tourist calendar, are really the only thing here to call perfect!). I bet he originally wanted to make a movie about the east's magic and vagueness (his east's magic and vagueness), however with the totally wrong material.I don't need to say that this is the meanest place to meet Arabian characters. They're all : pimps, thieves, whores, sex maniacs, mad women; it tells you a lot about who were the persons that the author went to meet in his trips for the east, if there was any !On the other hand the western characters are badly portrayed too. The old lady, her pathetically gay son, ..etc. But anyway, if this film wanted to show an ugly world then it did, but for what purpose ?!! If it was about the search for satisfaction as endless, then it's where I was eventually unsatisfied indeed ! There is something to be said, however it's shatteringly said. By the way, it has no end. I mean it's not good or bad, it's not even there. And yeah, the appearance of (Paul Bowles), the author of the book, at the end is one of the most embarrassing moments in the history of cinema; I believe the film didn't demand to be more surreal !Some might see that (Bertolucci) is a genius. After watching some of his works, I don't. In fact he's far from being one. There is lust and loss in his films, but mostly a lust for the loss of any good meaning or art along the way too !In general, a good story it ain't. A soft porn it strongly aspires after. An arty film about alienation it could be, yet so heavily done. Now, let me depose my objective alter ego to declare it frankly; whether it's (The Sheltering Sky), (Tea in the Desert), or even (The Sheltering Tea) it ended up as boring and worst of all pointless. It's not "I hate this film", rather "this is a film to hate" !P.S: While the film takes place in north of Africa during the 1940s, at one moment we hear in the streets an Arabian song by the great Egyptian composer/singer (Mohamed Abd El-Wahab), it's "Min Ger Leeh" or "Without Why" which actually belongs to the year of 1990, being the last one he ever sang!

Robert J. Maxwell The movie, I gather, is supposed to be about the eroding marriage of Kit (Winger) and Port Moresby (Malkovitch). Port Moresby? The writer of the novel, Paul Bowles, surely meant it as a joke but although I get the joke I didn't get the point.In fact, the point of the entire film was pretty much lost on me. Winger and Malkovitch arrive to do some touring in North Africa. Come wiz me to zah Casbar. And tell us where Rick's Cafe is located. Right. There is a hanger-on whom they've met on their journey, Scott Campbell. The trio do their best to make themselves at home in the strange city full of strange streets. They stay in a crummy hotel. They wander about and drink tea. No booze in Islamic countries, though my informants asseverate that there is usually some dynamite hash to be had.But if the point of the story is that Kit and Port feel their marriage dissolving, and that they're searching for something that will restore meaning to their bond, there's not much evidence of it. Yes, Port sleeps with a seductive and treacherous hooker. And Winger and Scott spend the night together after a debauch. But there's nothing to indicate that these were more than errant acts based on impulse, nothing resembling a recurring pattern. Kit and Port don't fight; they hardly argue. They may not be especially bright but they're not soulless either.They leave the city and travel to a smaller and shabbier tourist town. They manage to dump Scott somewhere. Then they board an overcrowded third-world bus and wind up with Port dying of some unidentified disease, a victim of the epidemic that has caused the closing of the only respectable hotel in town.She leaves his body on the floor mattress and wanders off into the desert's fringe, where she is offered a ride by some spooky looking nomads, who turn out to be reasonably human after all. They take her to a village compound made up of some unworldly looking multi-story adobe structures. Winger stays with the young head honcho for a while, getting to know him in a Biblical sense, until the other ladies begin to resent her presence and throw her out. She winds up at a Western outpost, tattooed but saved.Bowles, the author, makes small appearances at the beginning and the end of Winger's journey, voicing some pieces of narrative from the novel, which I didn't find enlightening. Somerset Maugham used to do it better.Bonus points for the photography. Bernardo Bertolucci may have let the story get away from him but he's got the desert and its denizens down pat. Some of the shots are extremely impressive, the ones that don't look like Bakersfield or Deming. Timbuktu, I was surprised to learn, is a small but flourishing city rather than a caravansary, no longer just Timbuk One. Another joke the point of which eludes me. If Terence Malick had been behind the camera there would have been inserts of the fauna, little lizards skittering around or a sawscale viper or something. Decent performances too.The first time I saw this I was swept up in the tale because I was curious about seeing where it would go, and then found myself engaged with the characters. It doesn't hold up as well on a second viewing. The mystery, what there was of it, is over.

Randolph21 I agree that this film is very under rated. I have seen this film 3 times. Once at the Chicago Film Festival, Second in General release, and third on Laser Disc. I have to say that the version that was shown at the Chicago Film Festival was about 30 minutes longer than the general release version, and the Laser disc version. (I am assuming that the tape and DVD Version are the same as the Laser disc version and general release version) I think it would be great if there could be a Directors Cut version released that included all of the parts of the film that was cut from the general release version. The cinematography was just great and the acting was superior! It should have won an Oscar or two!