Until the End of the World ( 1991 )

Set in a futuristic 1999, a woman (Dommartin) has a car accident with a pair of bank robbers, who enlist her help to take the stolen money to a drop in Paris. On the way, she runs into another fugitive from the law (Hurt), an American who's being chased by the CIA. He claims the charges are false. The authorities want to confiscate a device his father invented which allows anyone to record their dreams and vision. On the run from both the bank robbers and the CIA, the couple span the globe, ending up in Australia at his father's (von Sydow) research facility, where they hope to play back the recordings Hurt captured for his blind mother. A subplot about a damaged Indian nuclear satellite crashing to Earth and causing the end of civilization is a puzzling, though significant, addition to the film.—Ed Sutton / edited by Hans Delbruck