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If English is your first language and you could translate my old Italian text, please contact me.
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La passione per il rock'n'roll ed il flipper evitò
che si facesse prete; disturbato dal passato del suo Paese, abbracciò la cultura degli occupanti Americani.
Dopo gli studi a Parigi e Monaco,
Wim Wenders (Germany, 1945)
si segnalò come critico e autore di
diversi cortometraggi: come nelle partite di flipper Some Players Shoot Again (1967) ripropone
cinque volte ogni sequenza; Silver City (1969) è una serie di dieci vedute di prima mattina e a
tarda sera da una finestra rialzata, con montaggio ricavato da un vecchio 78 giri; e dedicato ai Kinks;
Summer in the City (1970), il suo primo film, è un thriller di gangsters; fra questi due poli Wenders scopre
anche la musica rock e le proteste del Sessantotto, nonchè lo scrittore Peter Handke: Alabama (1969) si
muove in un bar di capelloni, Polizeifilm (1969) è una parodia dei metodi repressivi della
polizia.
Die Angst des Tormanns Bein Elfmeter/ The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty (1972), tratto dal romanzo di Handke del 1971, primo film ad
interessarsi a un personaggio, adotta stabilmente elementi americani come il road-movie, la musica rock,
la provincia, che accosta al malessere dei giovani tedeschi: un portiere di calcio strangola senza motivo
l'amante e fugge in un paesino di confine dove spera di riconquistare un'altra donna; deluso dal suo
diniego, bighellona e fomenta una rissa; sostanzialmente aspetta che la polizia lo arresti, un po' come il
portiere aspetta sul campo che il pallone lo trafigga. Wenders imprime il suo marchio, un fitto dettaglio di
persone e oggetti, sull'apologo di Handke (ovviamente il campo da gioco è la Germania).
Dopo una riduzione di Scarlett Letter (1973), il romanzo di Hawthorne,
Wenders diresse il metafisico Alice in Den Stadten/ Alice in the Cities (1974), destinato a rimanere uno dei suoi capolavori.
Un giornalista licenziato per le sue idee sul modo di fare un
reportage incontra a New York una connazionale, separata dal marito, che gli affida la figlia e scompare; i
due viaggiano per giorni attraverso la Germania alla ricerca dei nonni; ad un certo punto lui decide di
consegnare la bambina alla polizia, ma lei riesce a fuggire e raggiungerlo e, quando la madre si
rifà viva, i due scappano lontano.
È l'inizio della "trilogia della strada": l'errabonda avventura dei
due amici è la storia di una diversa ansia, quella dell'adulto e quella del bambino, che spinge a
cercare sulla strada l'equilibrio irrimediabilmente compromesso dal proprio ambiente.
Falsche Bewegung/ The Wrong Move (1975), tratto dal "Wilhelm Meister" di Goethe,
è un altro genere di vagabondaggio, artistico, che porta uno scrittore a deporre la penna a favore
della cinepresa.
L'eroe solitario di Im Lauf der Zeit/ Kings of the Road (1976) è un giovane
vagabondo che viaggia su un camion adibito ad abitazione e che sbanca il lunario facendo il techico per
cinema porno; a lui si unisce un medico dell'infanzia, ripescato dal fiume dove era finito con la sua auto,
che gli racconta il proprio infelice passato; i due seguono il confine fra le due Germanie, incontrano altri
personaggi e arrivano alla casa natale del camionista, dove si trovaano ancora alcune vestigia della sua
infanzia. Si separano, ognuno per la propria strada. Il loro viaggio si rivela così un viaggio nella
memoria (oltre che una ricognizione sulla crisi del cinema, per via di tutte le sale di proiezione visitate);
è il viaggio alla ricerca di un'identità, ma vi è sempre una frontiera che
interrompe il viaggio; durante il viaggio il protagonista paga un pesante scotto, l'aridità degli
oggetti e delle persone (dalle camere d'albergo ai distributori di benzina), che acuisce la sua
solitudine.
Der Amerikanische Freund/ The American Friend (1977),
half gangster movie and half film noir,
adapted from Patricia Highsmith's novel "Ripley's Game",
è quasi un omaggio a
Hitchcock, benchè il codice linguistico del giallo venga stravolto da un uso strumentale dei tempi
morti e da un'ambientazione che cerca una metropoli misteriosa e inquietante.
Tom, who always wears a cowboy hat, is a wealthy US art dealer in Germany who visits a forger, Pogash, whom he calls "Master Titian" after he provided a forged Titian that Tom sold. Tom commissions two more paintings.
A man is having an existential crisis, recording his fear of fear.
He is a picture framer and observes skeptically a painting that he has just framed.
Tom sits among the public of an auction as one of his forged paintings is being auctioned and overhears the picture framer, Jonathan, whisper to a bidder
that the painting is most likely a fake because the blue is not right.
The bidder, Allan Winter, goes ahead anyway to bid a high price for the
painting because he thinks that Texans will be dumb enough to buy it.
Allan and Jonathan are then introduced to Tom but Jonathan refuses to shake his hand, clearly implying that Tom is a crook.
Jonathan's wife works with the auction firm. Her boss informs Tom that Jonathan
is ill of a blood disease and his medical treatment is expensive and is supported by his wife Marianne.
At night a man breaks into Tom's place and Tom almost shoots him: it's his old
French friend Raoul Minot, who wants Tom to find him a man to commit a murder,
a man who would never be suspected. Tom initially hesitates but Raoul reminds
him that he owes him. Tom visits Jonathan in his studio, looking for a frame.
Jonathan is still unfriendly. Jonathan is upset when he receives a telegram from Allan who has learned of his disease. Allan's telegram makes it sound worse than it is, implying that Allan has been informed of what Marianne's boss told Tom.
After being reassured by his doctor that this is an exaggeration, Jonathan is approached by Raoul, who flatly offers him a lot of money to kill someone, a gangster.
Jonathan refuses disgusted, but is alarmed that Raoul too thinks he is going
to die soon (because Tom told him so) and visits his doctor again. His doctor
again states that his condition has not changed and he could live five years like one month, but accepts to perform another test, which will take a few days for the results.
The following day in his studio Jonathan finds an envelop full of money sent by Raoul. Jonathan calls him and Raoul tells him that the money is for a flight to Paris, where he has arranged for Jonathan to be seen by
a famous hematologist.
As he prepares for the flight, Marianne remarks that it all started with Allan's telegram and wonders if it was truly sent by Allan.
Raoul treats Jonathan to a five-star hotel and a driver, Rudolf, takes him to the doctor, who is actually Swiss.
Later Raoul delivers a report to Jonathan according to which Jonathan is going to die soon.
Now Jonathan accepts Raoul offer to kill a man.
Raoul tells him that this person is a killer named Samuel Ingraham.
Rudolf points out the man in a metro station.
Jonathan follows the man on a train and, nervous, almost loses him and finally
shoots him on an escalator, a scene captured by the cameras of the subway.
Back home, Jonathan hides the bad news from his wife, but his wife can tell that he is hiding something from her.
Raoul shows up again and again offers Jonathan a job to kill a stranger, this time on a train in Munich. Jonathan refuses.
Later, Raoul meets with Tom and tells him that he offered Jonathan a second job,
another gangster.
Raoul's plan is to make it look like revenge for the murder in the Paris metro.
Tom realizes that it's a more dangerous job and hopes that Jonathan will not take it.
Tom, who has been visiting Jonathan's shop to purchase a frame,
understands that Jonathan has decided to accept the job.
Tom also sees Jonathan's little son and his wife, and gets hold of the recordings that Jonathan made of his existential crisis.
The following day Jonathan is on the train, ready to strike.
Raoul points out the target, who is accompanied by two bodyguards.
Meanwhile at home Marianne picks up a package delivered for Jonathan.
On the train Jonathan is almost overpowered by one of the bodyguards but
suddenly Tom appears and brutally kills the bodyguard.
Then they throw the target off the train.
Back home Marianne is angry at Jonathan for not confessing what he's up to.
She senses that it has to do with Tom but suspects it's about a dishonest art deal.
Jonathan and Tom meet at a cafe, now friends.
Tom explains that it was him to spread the rumor about Jonathan's terminal illness and it was his idea to suggest Jonathan to Raoul and that he actually wanted to prevent the second murder.
Marianne finds a lot of money in the bank account and is even more upset that
Jonathan refuses to explain how he got it. She moves out.
Raoul shows up at Jonathan's place. The rival gangsters have bombed his
apartment in Paris and Raoul wants to know how they found out that he was behind the murders. Jonathan, devastated by Marianne's departure, confesses that
all went well in the train but also that Tom was there.
Jonathan calls Tom, and Tom, now afraid for their lives, takes him to his house.
They mount guard, fearing that gangsters or Raoul will show up to take revenge also on them.
The gangsters (who presumably have already killed Raoul) arrive in an ambulance in the middle of the night and try to break into Tom's place but
Tom and Jonathan kill them, including the people waiting in the ambulance,
except a lady wearing a fur, who simply walks away.
Tom and Jonathan are about to leave when a car arrives. It's Marianne who somehow found them. She tells Jonathan that she found the French medical report and their doctor says that they are fake. Jonathan, exhausted, is speechless.
Tom calmly asks Marianne to drive Jonathan's car and follow him. Tom drives the ambulance to a deserted beach. Then he
douses the ambulance with gasoline and sets it on fire.
Jonathan suddenly grabs the wheel of his car and starts driving away with Marianne, leaving Tom alone at the beach. Tom runs in vain after them.
But Jonathan soon loses control of the car, faints and dies.
Marianne manages to stop the car and survives.
Ancor più disperato Nick's Film (1980), un documentario che narra l'agonia del
regista americano Nicholas Ray, malato di cancro. L'amicizia fra due uomini è questa volta fra i
due registi, l'uno spettatore della fine dell'altro.
Der Stand der Dinge/ The State of Things (1982, Leone d'oro a Venezia) è ancora un'amara riflessione
autobiografica, questa volta un'apologo sui suoi rapporti con il cinema di Hollywood (alcuni interpreti
sono famosi registi), in particolare con il produttore Coppola, un "panphlet" sulla dignità
del cinema che si tinge di giallo. Un produttore banditesco ha abbandonata senza soldi la troupe
che sta girando un film ed il regista lo va a stanare nella villa con piscina dove si è nascosto; il
produttore teme che i gangster lo uccidano e quando essi arrivano anche il regista rimane colpito a morte
e a nulla gli serve impugnare la cinepresa come un'arma.
Il film prodotto da Francis Ford Coppola è Hammett (1982), un omaggio al film
"noir" che narra di come il celebre scrittore di gialli giunse al suo capolavoro: coinvolto in un fatto
poliziesco si servì da un lato dell'esperienza maturata nello scrivere romanzi per risolvere il
mistero e dall'altro degli eventi a cui assisteva per scrivere il nuovo libro, un po' ciò che Wenders
stesso sta facendo col cinema.
Paris, Texas (1984), scritto da Sam Shepard, è la storia di un "amour fou".
Lo stereotipo del "viaggio" è capovolto, imploso, in quello
del perpetuo "ritorno", dalla dilaniante solitudine degli spazi aperti dalla crudele realtà degli
affetti; il silenzio duro, ascetico del protagonista rievoca il minimalismo del cinema di Ozu.
Wenders is fond of non-human landscape: desert, billboards, freeway overpasses.
A man is walking alone in the desert and running out of water.
He finally reaches a building and collapses to the floor.
The man revives in a hospital as
a German doctor examines him but can't speak.
He seems catatonic. The doctor finds a business card in his pocket and calls
the number: the man who answers, Walt, is in Los Angeles.
Walt tells his French wife Anne that he's going to pick up Travis,
leaves his work
and heads for the desert town: flight plus rental car.
When he arrives, Walt tells the doctor that he hasn't seen his older brother
Travis in four years.
The doctor tells Walt that Travis has disappeared and asks for a little reward
to surrender Travis' belongings.
Walt drives around until he finds Travis, who is wandering again in the middle of nowhere.
Travis doesn't recognizes Walt and behaves like a zombie.
Travis hesitates but the accepts to get into Walt's car.
Walt drives Travis back to Los Angeles, a long drive.
Walt, who thought that Travis was dead, asks questions in vain: Travis doesn't say a word.
They stop in a motel for the night.
Walt offers to buy new clothes and shoes for him as Travis' shoes are destroyed
and his clothes are filthy.
When Walt returns, he finds the shower running but Travis left again.
Walt has to drive around again until he finds Travis walking on the railway tracks.
Again, Travis refuses to say where he's heading to.
Walt tells him that he and his wife adopted his eight-year-old son Hunter after he disappeared.
Travis still doesn't talk.
Walt keeps driving towards Los Angeles. Finally, Travis speaks: he says he wants
to go to Paris. Obviously, Walt understands Paris in France, and ignores the
question.
They finally reach the airport, drop the rental car and get on a plane,
but Travis causes a problem and they have to disembark. Walt assumes it
was just fear of flying. They have to rent another car, and Travis insists
that they find the exact same car. Then they resume the long drive towards
Los Angeles.
Travis is now talking. He shows Walt a photograph of Paris: it's a desert.
Now Walt understands that Travis bought a piece of desert in a town called
Paris. Travis says he forgot why he bought it. Travis even offers to take shifts
at driving, but still refuses to explain the four years during which he disappeared.
Walt falls asleep and, when he wakes up, he realizes that Travis left the
highway and stopped in the middle of another desert.
Suddenly Travis remembers why he bought that piece of desert: once their mother
told him that their parents made love for the first time in that Paris town
Travis believes that he was conceived there.
They finally reach home, where Travis receives a warm welcome from Anne and
is finally reunited with his son Hunter.
Travis doesn't know what to tell the boy and the boy looks at him like a stranger.
Travis is still weird. He polishes the shoes of the family but then stares obsessively with a binocular at the local airport.
Travis at least tries to familiarize with Hunter, but the boy ignores him when he goes to pick him up at school.
Walt shows the video of an old trip when Hunter was little and Travis was still
with his wife Jane.
Then Travis gets advice from the Mexican maid about how to look like a father
and completely changes his attire to look more like a gentleman.
It works: Hunter is amused and lets Travis pick him up at school (although walking on different sides of the road).
At home Travis shows Hunter pictures of his own father, Hunter's grandfather,
and they finally connect.
Anne is now afraid that they will lose Hunter, whom she views as her own son.
Hunter overhears the conversation.
One evening Anne confesses to Travis that she has been in contact with Jane all the time.
We learn that Travis broke up with Anne before he disappeared.
Jane stopped calling Anne but kept sending money for Hunter on a regular basis.
Again, Hunter overhears the conversation.
Anne tells Travis which bank Jane uses and which days she makes the money
transfers: it's a bank in Texas.
Travis tells Walt that he wants to find Jane.
Travis asks Walt what happened with Jane in the old days, but Travis refuses to
discuss. He only asks Walt for money to buy a cheap pickup truck.
Travis tells Hunter what he wants to do and Hunter demands to tag along.
They leave without informing Walt and Anne that Hunter is with Travis.
After a long drive, Travis stops at a phone booth and asks little Hunter
to call Walt and Anne. Hunter calls them and like an adult explains what
he is doing.
Anne is heartbroken as she realizes that she is losing a son.
Travis and Hunter sleep in a motel and then resume the trip: Travis drives, Hunter sits in the back of the pickup truck, and they communicate via walkie-talkies. They finally reach Jane's bank in Houston on the day when she makes the deposit.
They split up at the bank so they can check two sides of the building.
Hunter soon falls asleep but the noise of a helicopter wakes him up just when
his mother Jane is driving by.
Hunter calls Travis on the walkie-talkie (who comically has also fallen
asleep) and they start following her on the freeway.
They follow her all the way to a parking lot and Travis realizes that she works
in a sex club.
The girls exhibit themselves behind one-way windows in private booths: the girl
cannot see the customer.
He enters one booth and asks for girls until Jane shows up.
However when she finally shows up he doesn't know what to say across the one-way glass and he makes her uncomfortable by not behaving like the typical pervert.
He leaves while she's still talking to him.
Travis drives away with Hunter, who doesn't ask questions, sensing that
there's something wrong with his mother.
At a bar Travis gets drunk and shows Hunter the picture of his lot in Paris.
The following day Travis starts driving back towards Los Angeles but then
changes his mind and drives back to Houston.
He takes a room in an expensive hotel and, while Hunter is asleep, tapes
a message for Hunter explaining that his mission is to reunite him, Hunter,
with his mother Jane.
Travis drives to the sex club and asks again for Jane.
He then starts telling her the story of them but in the third person, as if it were other people.
We learn that he was jealous of his sexy wife and kept losing jobs to stay
with her all the time.
She got pregnant and he got a steady job but she became depressed.
Then he got depressed too, and a violent alcoholic.
She only dreamed of leaving him.
Travis start telling her specific episodes of their violent arguments and she
begins weeping, realizing that he's talking about her.
Travis continues the story of how they broke up: one day he caused a fire that
burned their trailer, and his wife vanished with the child.
Travis started running and running into the desert.
Jane, who cannot see him behind the glass, has recognized him and says his name.
She approaches the glass and for a few seconds we see Travis' face reflected
exactly where Jane's face is.
Jane confesses that she's always wanted to see Hunter again after leaving him
with Walt and Anne.
Travis gives her the address of the hotel but doesn't want to meet her.
Jane drives to the hotel and reunites with Hunter but we see that Travis
will never join them: he drives away.
Il documentario
Tokyo-ga (1983) è il resoconto di un viaggio in Giappone alla
ricerca dell'universo raccontato dai film di Ozu.
Tornato a Berlino dal 1984 gira
Der Himmel über Berlin/ Wings of Desire (1987),
film sovraccarico, didascalico affresco di Berlino.
E` una storia di angeli, rappresentati da uomini in cappotto con il codino.
Un angelo sente i pensieri delle persone che gli
passano vicino. La sua esistenza consiste nell'attraversare ambienti e
ascoltare cosa pensano le persone che vi vivono. L'angelo diventa cosi`
confidente di tante piccole tragedie personali, dal metro` al traffico.
La biblioteca e` uno dei luoghi preferiti dagli angeli. Qui un angelo
si affeziona a un vecchietto.
Il primo angelo e` invece attratto dal circo. Sente che la bella trapezista
Marion
e` disperata: il circo sta per chiudere, torna in Francia, lei vuole
rimanere (in francese).
L'altro angelo segue le peregrinazioni del vecchietto, che cerca la vecchia
piazza dove viveva e rimugina il passato della Germania. L'angelo viene
catapultato indietro nel tempo.
Al tempo stesso il primo angelo si trova sul set di un film di Peter Falk
che ricostruisce per l'appunto l'era nazista. L'angelo ascolta i pensieri di
Falk in inglese. I due angeli vagano entrambi sul set. Poi vanno entrambi al
circo. Il secondo angelo nota che il primo si commuove davanti alla ragazza.
Intanto continuano ad essere testimoni di continue tragedie: un incidente
motociclistico, un suicidio,... la realta` scorre loro davanti a velocita`
forsennata. Il primo angelo continua a dividersi fra la biblioteca, il circo
e il set. Falk lo sente, ed e` la prima volta che un umano lo sente. Lo
invita quasi a diventare umano. L'angelo si lascia convincere: confida
all'altro angelo di voler diventare umano. Mentre parla, l'altro nota che
sta lasciando impronte dietro di se`. Sviene e quando rinviene e` umano.
Vede i colori (prima tutte le immagini erano in bianco e nero). Lo scambiano
per un barbone. Sia il set sia il circo stanno smantellando. Va a stringere
la mano a Falk, che gli confida di essere stato anche lui angelo. Marion
rimane, saluta i compagni che partono. L'angelo e` deciso a trovarla nella
grande citta` e vaga di strada in strada. La ragazza capita invece vicino
a Falk, ma si scambiano soltanto poche parole. L'altro angelo e` li` vicino
e Falk lo sente: tenta di irretire anche il secondo angelo, ma questi non
ci casca. Il primo angelo va a un concerto di musica rock e vi incontra
finalmente la ragazza. Si comportano come se si conoscessero da sempre.
Lei gli tiene un discorso filosofico. Vanno a vivere insieme.
Forse troppo intellettuale. Certamente i testi di Handke lo rendono pesante
e tortuoso. E poco credibile. L'angelo conosce meglio di chiunque altro
la tragedia di vivere, perche' ascolta i pensieri di tutti e sa che tutti
soffrono; eppure sceglie di vivere anche lui, e lo fa perche' e` l'unico
modo di poter vivere accanto alla ragazza di cui si e` innamorato.
La ragazza sembra d'altronde predestinata, e Falk sembra avere un ruolo,
come se esistesse un complotto per ridurre i ranghi degli angeli.
Lo stile di Wenders è più vicino a quello degli asceti che allo
spettacolo hollywoodiano: il tema è sovente l'assenza, la ricerca di qualcosa che manca (contatto
umano), il viaggio attraverso, la solitudine e l'isolamento.
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Bis ans Ende der Welt/ Until the End of the World (1991),
conceived with actress Solveig Dommartin (Marion in Wings of Desire) and novelist Peter Carey,
is an apocalyptic three-hour sci-fi movie, mostly in English but also in French (the beginning), and also available as a 295-minute director's cut.
It is actually a parody of the film noir, of the spy thriller and of the romantic comedy, all combined in one long feuilleton.
The full 295-minute film is a long, meandering cauldron of action and dialogues.
The official 158-minute version (from which more than two hours of material that was removed) works better in terms of spectacle and suspense, but misses some
important details on the characters.
In between the two versions there is probably a great film.
That great film is many films in one.
On the surface there is a road movie with multiple chases: bounty hunters chase the scientist's son who is chased by the woman who is in love with him who in turn is chased by her fiance; and in the meantime government agents are chasing the scientist who is chasing his dream of a revolutionary invention.
It is even difficult to establish who is the protagonist of this story of nested chases: the woman in love with a complete stranger? the son who risks his life to fulfill his parents' dream? the writer who enables
There are also multiple melodramas within this film:
there is a film about the writer's unconditional love for the woman who leaves him for another man, or, better, for a dream;
there is a film about filial devotion to an ungrateful father;
there is a film about restoring a blind woman's sight;
and there is a film about a mad scientist's quest for glory.
There is, of course, the postmodernist story of a writer who writes the film that we are watching and writes it based on real-life events, or, better, events that he describes as having really happened to him (we can't determine whether this is true or false).
Another way to look at the film is as a parable about human madness, and in particular about science's madness. It's not only that science almost destroys life on the planet but the scientific experiment matters more to the scientist than the end of the world. Then again the scientific experiment doesn't just serve vanity: it also serves to reconcile the individual with mortality.
Within this film there is a story of humankind's resilience in the face of personal (wife's death) and global (nuclear apocalypse) catastrophe.
There is also a parable about the advent of visual civilization and the demise
of the written civilization, a parable in which communications (even with one own's dreams) is based on images, a parable about the power of images not only to
communicate but also to entertain, and therefore to become become an addiction
just like slot-machines and recreational drugs, but also a parable about
the resilience of the written word in the face of deluge of images: the novel (and therefore the film) gets written on an old typewriter.
Finally, one can find an involuntary Christian undercurrent flowing under all the parables and allegories.
Henry is God,
Sam is his son Jesus, who comes to Earth to fulfill his father's vision.
Claire is a Mary Magdalene, a sinful woman who blindly follows Jesus wherever he goes. She has her own guardian angels.
Burt the bounty hunter is a sort of Judas who is willing to sell Jesus for money.
Philip the detective is a sort of Thomas who doesn't believe.
Gene is a sort of Holy Spirit who makes the whole story happen.
The difference is that Sam/Jesus is almost crucified but saves himself. Instead, it's Henry/God who ends up in prison, arrested by humans.
Burt/Judas gives up and Philip/Thomas repents.
It's the Christian gospel with a happy ending.
The film is set in 1999, at the end of the millennium.
Scientists have lost control of an Indian nuclear satellite and nobody knows
where it might crash. Claire doesn't care because she has to deal with her
own recurring nightmare in which she is crashing from the sky.
Claire wakes up after a wild party and begins a journey.
She drives from Italy to France along the coast. Stuck in a traffic jam,
she disobeys the navigator and takes an alternate route. As she is about to
pass a car, the driver of that car throws a bottle out of the window, which
crashes into the windshield of Claire's car. The two cars collide.
Claire confronts the driver and the passenger of the other car,
Chico and Raymond, who turn out to be friendly, so friendly that she accepts to give them a ride, since her car is still working.
At the hotel Chico shows her that their suitcase is full of money stolen from a bank, and offers her some of it if she carriest the rest to Paris.
She stops to make a phone call at a place that has
videophones. The man next to her is talking to a man called Guenther when
suddenly something happens to his eye. Claire helps him and he leaves.
Claire calls her friend Makiko and asks about a Eugene.
A black stranger approaches her who is looking for the man who just left.
He has a gun under her jacket.
She picks up her car at the shop where the windshield has been repaired and is about to start driving when the man of the videophone enters her car and begs her to drive away. He admits that someone is following him and claims that he owes money to gansters.
He introduces himself as Trevor (although on the phone a woman was calling him Sam), a US citizen with a wife and children.
Suddenly, they are stopped by the police. She admits to Trevor that she has something in the bag she doesn't want the police to see. He distracts the police
and starts driving. He plays a tape of
pygmy music from Cameroon.
She tells him that her boyfriend had sex with her best friend.
While she takes a nap, he opens her bag and takes some of the money.
He reaches his destination and gets off.
She reaches her old apartment where her boyfriend Gene, a famous writer, still lives.
We now realize that the narrating voice is his voice.
She tells Gene about the money. As she opens the bag, she realizes that
Trevor has stolen some of the money, although he has left a note that
he wants to return the money.
Gene would like her to call the police but she needs the money to buy
an apartment. Her best friend Makiko is helping her.
They carefully count and pack the banknotes, then they have sex.
Claire meets
Makiko to check out the apartment and tells her that she forgives her.
Then Claire accidentally runs into the black armed man who is on a street videophone
and overhears that Trevor is in Berlin.
Claire returns to Gene's place and tells him that she has decided to travel
to Berlin.
Gene tells us that she is in love with the idea of being in love.
She reaches Trevor's address in Berlin, where the black armed man is already watching him.
Trevor is with his uncle's family. She interrupts him and kindly reminds him that he
owes her money. She also warns him that the black armed man has been following him.
Again, Trevor's uncle calls him Sam.
Trevor convinces Claire to wait for him at her hotel.
Claire visits a private detective, Philip, who finds out that Trevor
has stolen opal from a mining company in Australia and the company
is offering a bounty for his capture.
The detective also finds out that Trevor is flying to Lisbon.
Claire tells him that Trevor stole from her too but omits the actual amount.
The detective is excited to catch Trevor because of the bounty.
Claire and the detective fly to Lisbon.
Claire confronts Trevor and tells him that she knows of his opal trouble,
but then she basically helps him escape through the streets of Lisbon
despite the fact that the detective has handcuffed them together.
The detective eventually catches up with them in a hotel where they are
having sex, still handcuffed.
The detective has a gun but Trevor pretends to have a gun under the sheet.
After the detective unlocks the handcuff, Trevor reveals that he's holding
a crucifix, not a gun.
But then Trevor fools Claire again: he handcuffs her together with the detective to the bed and leaves her, taking also her bag which contains the money she
was supposed to pay the detective.
The detective does not give up because of the bounty. He tracks down Trevor
in Moscow. Claire and the detective fly to Moscow.
Claire calls Gene to tell him where she's going, and Gene surprises her by
reaching Moscow at the same time.
The detective gets in touch with a local detective, a woman, who uses her
computer to find out about Trevor, and so they find out that Trevor is not
Trevor: he is Sam. He has stolen Trevor's passport.
This Sam is actually wanted in the USA.
The detective is scared and decides to return to Berlin.
Gene, instead, decides to help Claire, even though it is obvious that Claire
is in love with Trevor/Sam. Gene buys a specialized computer for detectives
and finds out that Sam is wanted for
industrial espionage and the bounty on Sam is ever larger than the bounty on Trevor.
Meanwhile, Claire runs into the black armed man, whose name is Burt.
Claire gets Burt drunk and drugs him, so she learns that Sam is a scientist who helped develop a camera at a lab in Palo Alto and then stole it.
She returns to the hotel. While Gene is taking a nap (he's actually only pretending), she learns from the computer that
Sam has purchased a ticket to Beijing on the Trans-Siberian railway.
She rushes out and boards the same train.
She finds Sam's cabin but he doesn't let her in. She has to sleep on the floor
of the corridor. One night she awakes at a Chinese train station and realizes
that he got off. She gets off too but there's nobody at the train station.
Gene recounts how she hitchhiks in vain to Beijing. Gene gives her an appointment in Tokyo at the hotel where Sam is supposed to be staying.
Meanwhile, we learn from a news broadcast that the USA is planning to shoot down the Indian nuclear
satellite and protesters have killed
the US ambassador
to the United Nations: protesters are afraid that shooting down the satellite
will ignite a chain reaction.
When they both arrive at the Tokyo hotel, Claire
immediately searches for Sam, wreaking havoc all over the hotel.
Eventually she finds not Sam but her detective bound and gagged.
As she is freeing him, a shootout erupts. She flees the hotel from the
emergency stairs and ends up in a pachinko parlor where she accidentally runs
into Sam, who is behaving like a game addict and who tells her that he is losing his eyesight.
She motherly takes care of him. Meanwhile, at the hotel the detective tells
Sam that several bounty hunters and international spies are chasing Sam.
Claire abandons Gene but Gene keeps telling the story of what Claire does.
Gene keeps chasing her and soon realizes that the detective Philip is following him.
The detective knows where Claire and Sam are hiding, so Gene accepts to join him again.
In fact, Claire has taken Sam to a traditional inn in a small mountain village.
The old owner of the inn is a doctor who heals Sam's eyes.
Sam now tells Claire a different story, that he is the son of the scientist
who invented the camera, that the camera allows
blind people to see pictures, that it was invented for his mother who is blind,
that he has been collecting images for his mother to see.
Sam stole a camera that was stolen from his father.
When taking the pictures, the camera has to be worn in front of the eyes and this has caused Sam's eyesight to decline.
Sam claims that his globetrotting is simply due to his desire to take pictures for her mother to see the world.
He now wants to take pictures in San Francisco. They try to purchase a car with their cash but instead the car salesman pulls out a gun and steals the cash.
She calls Chico on a videophone (in French) because she needs more money.
Chico soon arrives on a pink convertible car (he finds them because Claire is still carrying the original bag for the money that is equipped with an electronic tracer).
The trio happily drives around San Francisco and visits his sister Elsa and niece Heidi.
Claire does the recording for Sam, so Sam can rest his eyes.
We learn that Sam's and Elsa's mother "ran away" before Heidi was born.
Chico (suddenly a benefactor) pays for Sam and Claire to travel on a Korean ship from San Francisco to Australia, where Sam's parents live, and tags along.
The journey takes three weeks.
Eugene and the detective Philip are already in Australia waiting for them.
Claire calls Makiko and Makiko tells her that the seller has agreed to Claire's
price for the apartment that Claire wanted, but Claire now tells Makiko that
she's not coming back.
The detective tracks Claire's call so he and Sam know where she is.
Sam finds Gene but Gene attacks him. They are arrested by the Australian police.
While they are in jail, and the detective is negotiating in vain to bail them out,
Burt the bounty hunter suddenly shows up,
now working for opal miners who want to find Trevor and using
a truth drug to make Claire talk.
Burt handcuffs Claire while she falls asleep and demands where Trevor/Sam is.
Claire tells him that Sam is not Trevor and then
she says something in French that Burt cannot understand.
Chico attacks Burt. She calls him her
"guardian angel".
Meanwhile in the jail Sam tells Gene that he is neither a spy nor a thief, and Gene swears to Sam that he will kill him if he hurts Claire.
Gene and Sam are finally released from jail.
Claire tells Gene that she is in love with Sam, and Gene seems resigned.
Chico, who is also a mechanic, has readied a small airplane for Sam,
but Sam tells him that he doesn't want anyone but Claire to see where his parents are hiding.
Sam and Claire take off alone.
However, Sam takes the bag that used to contain the money, the bag that has
the tracer, so Chico can follow them in a trailer.
Chico frees Burt.
Chico the bank robber, Burt the bounty hunter and Philip the detective gang together and start chasing Sam and Claire.
Sam and Claire are flying over the Australian desert when suddenly the engines
of the plane die. At the same time the trio traveling in the trailer through the same desert realizes that all electronic devices died.
Claire realizes that the USA blew up the nuclear satellite and murmurs "It's the end of the world".
Sam manages to land in the desert and then he and Claire have to walk a long way through the desert. Claire is still handcuffed to the door of the plane and has to carry the door with her.
Eventually, they reach civilization and hitchhike a ride.
In the middle of nowhere they are rescued by Sam's black friend David, who is driving a pickup truck on which are squeezed many passengers, including Gene and Philip.
The narrating voice of Gene informs us that the region had been abandoned years earlier because of a drought. Gene also informs us that the nuclear explosion has wiped out the novel that he was writing, stored in his computer. He therefore begins a new novel... the story that we just watched in this film.
When they arrive at the village, Sam introduces Claire to his blind French mother Edith (Jeanne Moreau), to her aboriginal sister Maisie, to his father Henry (Max von Sydow), to his aboriginal brother, to their doctor Lydia, and then gives her a tour of the laboratory built over four years inside a cave, where she meets
Henry's team of scientists (Karl the computer whiz, who
stole and deleted all of Henry's files from their old institute,
Ned the video whiz, Ronda the biochemist).
Somehow people can have "skin siblings", so there are aboriginal brothers and sisters of white people.
Sam hands his father the tape produced with the magic camera during one year of life-risking adventures, and his father doesn't even thank him.
(The tape has miraculously survived the nuclear radiation).
Henry is excited to see his brother Anton and his wife on the tape.
The lab is preparing for the experiment of transferring the images to Edith's brain. The computer has to read Sam's memories in order to produce the brainwaves
in his mother's brain.
The experiment fails: all that trouble for nothing.
Meanwhile, outside Gene has found an ancient typewriter and is busy at work writing his new novel (the film that we are watching).
Sam is hurt by the way his father treats him, and tells Claire that he's always been selfish like that, but we also learn that Sam is not any better: he dumped his wife when she first saw him on a video payphone (at the beginning of the film: his wife was the one calling him "Sam").
Sam also had a child but he died.
We also learn that his parents left the institute without telling him and it was only with David's help that he found where they were hiding.
Gene's narrating voice tells us that the village still doesn't know whether
anyone else has survived the nuclear explosion.
Henry doesn't give up. His experiment matters more to him than the end of the world.
Claire volunteers for the experiment: her memory is easier to upload
than Sam's and this time Edith sees the scene of
Sam's sister Elsa and niece Heidi (Edith's daughter and granddaughter).
The team exults. Sam is stunned. He tries again and this time he succeeds to
send pictures from his brain to his mother's brain.
Meanwhile, we see the aboriginal tribe gathering around the fire and we learn that they are passing knowledge on, they want to make sure that everything is preserved.
Edith tells Claire the story of her life. Blind since the age of eight, the
teenager Edith fled Berlin during the nazist era and met another teenage refugee, Henry, in Lisbon. Then they married and moved to California. By chasing Sam around the world, Claire has seen the cities where they lived.
She first came to Australia 40 years earlier to write a book on the aboriginal women and Henry followed her because he loved her. That's how they discovered this region and made friends there.
Edith fears that Sam blames his parents for the death of his child.
Gene tells us that in reality Edith is sad to be able to "see" because now she can see how those childhood friends have aged and can see the grief in their faces.
We realize that she is subjecting herself to the experiments only to out of love for her husband (or at least that's what Gene wants us to believe).
On the eve of the year 2000 the tribe is dancing and singing, but Edith, tired by the experiments, dies in her husband's arms. Her last words are
"What a chase it has been".
After the funeral, Henry returns to his laboratory, incapable of abandoning his scientific mission.
Meanwhile, Chico and Burt, camped in the desert with an aboriginal girl, have detected a radio station talking about the weather: humankind did survive.
Philip, Chico and Burt decide to go home.
Gene remains to finish his book.
Henry, who has already recovered from his wife's death, is researching how to record human dreams using his camera. Not only his
team abandons him, but the entire village migrates elsewhere, believing that he is going mad.
Only Karl remains with Henry, working around the clock.
Henry subjects Sam to the experiments and records his dreams.
Then Claire volunteers and is amazed to later be able to watch her own dreams,
dreams that she doesn't even remember.
Gene informs us that Henry, Sam and Claire got hooked to the technology: they walked around constantly watching their own dreams on portable devices.
It became a real addiction, causing a mental breakdown.
Gene finds Claire unable to stop watching the screen of her device and drives
her away into the desert.
She goes crazy when the batteries of her device die. She screams and cries.
Gene refuses to give her the batteries. He locks her in an enclosure like a wild animal.
And continues typing his novel on the typewriter. Gene thinks he understands
why Henry wanted to invent the machine to watch dreams: because he himself
wanted to watch his own dreams of his dead wife, the only place where she was still alive.
Meanwhile, a helicopter comes to arrest Henry and deport him to the USA.
The helicopter searches in vain for
Sam, who is nowhere to be found. David is helping Sam escape and helps him
heal from the addiction.
Claire recovers and starts reading Gene's novel.
However, Gene and Claire have moved apart and want to be no more than good friends.
At first Gene writes an ending to his novel in which Sam and Claire meet again,
but then changes his mind. (Is this the filmmaker reflecting on his own decision about the script?)
Sam does return to San Francisco, but alone. Claire, instead, becomes an astronaut. To celebrate her
30th birthday, and the publication of Gene's novel, Gene organizes a four-way videocall, with
Philip playing the harmonica from Berlin,
Chico and Raymond blowing candles on a birthday cake, and Claire watching them on her spaceship.
In Weiter Ferne so Nah/ Faraway So Close (1993) is a sequel to Wings of Desire.
Lisbon Story (1994) continues the story of Friedrich Munro, the director of The State of Things.
Jenseits der Wolken/ Beyond the Clouds (1995) is a set of four stories, a collaboration with Michelangelo Antonioni.
Die Gebrueder Skladanowsky/ A Trick of Light/ The Brothers Skladanowsky (1995) was made with university students and is partially a documentary.
Am Ende der Gewalt/ The End of Violence (1997) is an amateurish film noir.
The Million Dollar Hotel (2000), a collaboration with singer Bono of the rock band U2,
Land of Plenty (2004), a low-budget film filmed in only 16 days with digital cameras,
Don't Come Knocking (2005), another collaboration with Sam Shepard,
and
Palermo Shooting (2008), his first film set in Europe in 14 years,
were very minor films.
Every Thing Will Be Fine (2015), set in Quebec and based on an script by Bjorn Olaf Johannessen, is, if possible, even more amateurish.
Die Schoenen Tage von Aranjuez/ The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez (2016) is an adaptation of Peter Handke's play, but Wenders' cerebral style is beginning to feel dated and ultimately detious.
Grenzenlos/ Submergence (2017) is an adaptation of Jonathan Ledgard's novel.
His documentaries include:
Aufzeichnungen zu Kleidern und Staedten (1989) on fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto,
Buena Vista Social Club (2000) on Cuban music,
The Soul of a Man (2003) on blues music,
Pina (2011) about choreographer Pina Bausch,
Das Salz der Erde/ The Salt of the Earth (2014) about photographer Sebastiao Salgado,
and Pope Francis (2018).
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