Plot
The film takes place in late 1999. India has an out-of-control nuclear satellite in orbit that is about to reenter the atmosphere at any time, contaminating large areas of the earth. This has caused a massive panic, with everyone trying to flee the likely impact sites. Caught in a traffic jam, impatient and disconnected Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin) escapes the highway congestion by taking a side road. Her Dashboard Computer System announces she left the Map Zone Database and is on her own. She then has a couple of odd encounters: first with a pair of bank robbers (which leaves her with a large amount of cash), and with a hitchhiker being pursued by an armed party. Claire discovers, after falling in love with the enigmatic fugitive, that he is the son of a scientist (played by Max von Sydow), and has absconded with the prototype of a secret research project. Multiple government agencies and freelance bounty hunters are chasing him to recover the device.
The film has two distinct parts: the first is a mystery; the second a science-fiction adventure. The mystery is about the prototype, what it actually does and why so many people are interested in it. Halfway through the film the focus shifts, as the prototype is revealed to be a device for recording and translating brain impulses—a camera for the blind. The hitchhiker is traveling around the world, gathering images in the device though the reason why is not revealed. During the second part, the reason for his travels is revealed: the hitchhiker has been filming his extended family to bring home to his blind mother (Jeanne Moreau).
As the chase moves across the globe, the nuclear satellite is shot down, causing an EMP effect that wipes out all unshielded electronics worldwide. The characters wind up in a cave in the Australian Outback, where the recordings are played back. After the death of the hitchhiker's mother, his scientist father discovers a way to use the device to record human dreams. Several characters become addicted to viewing their own dreams, while Claire's estranged lover, a novelist, remains unaffected. He writes a novel about the adventure, which ultimately rescues Claire from her addiction to the device, via the power of words.
Read more about this topic: Until The End Of The World
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