More details about the plot of Broken Dream by John Boorman, the movie River Phoenix and Winona Ryder would make together: “A young magician, Ben, and his lover, Nell, travel the land performing in little theaters. It feels like the past - no cars or electricity, but it transpires that this is the future when fossil fuels have been exhausted, and people are living a simple life. The boy is sent for by his father, Old Ben, a blind magician, who tells him he has mastered the ultimate trick: how to make objects disappear. He wants his son to learn it and perfect it. When he has mastered it, Old Ben tells his son to make him disappear. He wants to cross to the place where the objects go, to form a bridge so that others may follow. Young Ben’s lover, Nell, and indeed anyone who witnesses the crossing over, yearns to go too. It is a metaphor for all our endings, for death and the possibility of redemption and transcendence. The world is running down, coming to a close. Ben must try to send the people over to the other place, before the world ends. This apocalyptic vision reflected the state of the world at that time: the realisation that fossil fuels were finite, the pervading sense that the planet was in terminal decline.”
— Adventures of a Suburban Boy by John Boorman (2004)
