"The Sheltering Sky" (1990)

You don't have to have read Paul Bowles' novel "The Sheltering Sky" to conclude that it must be a good deal more profound than Bernardo Bertolucci's film adaptation. If it weren't, it's doubtful it would still be a cult favorite 40-plus years after its debut. The film seems unlikely to provoke such fervor, although it may provide blessed relief for any insomniacs who venture near it. Soul searching is rarely a thrill a minute but it's rarely as tedious as this.

Bowles' book is a debatably autobiographical account of three Americans making their way through North Africa in the late 1940s. Port and Kit are married, although there's precious little passion left between them, and Tunner, their companion, is infatuated with Kit. Ideally, the trip would bring the couple back together, but instead fate intervenes, all three indulge in impulsive affairs and the trio splits up.

Bertolucci, perhaps hoping to recapture the fire of his "Last Tango in Paris," allows ample time for the sex and flirts with an NC-17 rating, but ignores the entire point of the book. It's not about sex, it's about people too obsessed with their own private worlds to realize the outside world around them. Their inner emptiness is reflected in the endless sands surrounding them. In the movie, there are multiple montages of the desert, but it's nothing but scenery; there's no correlation to the characters or what they're going through. Ryuichi Sakamoto's hypnotic score is far more affecting than anything happening onscreen.

There's nothing in the script or the performances of John Malkovich or Campbell Scott to make Port or Tunner interesting. Debra Winger throws herself into Kit with her customary gusto, but by the time Kit becomes the focal point of the story, the picture is already a lost cause and the semi-kinky liaisons between Kit and her Arab lover Belqassim reveal considerably more about Winger's bravery in showing her body than they do about Kit's descent into insanity. Once again, a group of great resumes unite to produce a piece of work unworthy of any of them. Oscar-bait it may be, but "The Sheltering Sky" is more deserving of the First Annual Chicken Little Award.