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Movies Forum Index » International Movies Forum » _Alice in the Cities_
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 Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 4:30 am |
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Wenders' best film in my opinion; at once his most
introspective self-portrait and his most incisive cultural
critique, which is based on lived experience, not trendy,
soon-forgotten theory. Which is why this existential
masterpiece has aged so well (while, in my view,
Antonioni's has not). In fact, I'm surprised I remember
so much of this film, or that I still identify so strongly
with Rudiger Vogler's wanderlust-afflicted Philip Winter
(the first of 4 films he would go by that name). His
lady friend tells him that he has lost his senses when
he lost his identity. She knows this, because he is
afflicted with the same malaise. No one taught her
how to live, either. The power and truth in these words,
which constitute Wenders' truest and most powerful
dialog, caught me by surprise; he is known for his
images, not Robert Altmanesque sharp exchanges.
(In contrast, one reason I have reservations about
_Wings of Desire_ is because its featured dialog
-- they usually take place at the end of Wenders' films
-- sound like over-romanticized gibberish.)
Winter is a writer on assignment to write about
America. He drives across the land, from what
appears to be the Santa Monica beaches all the
way to Shee stadium in the Queens. The homogeneity
of the cities, the motels, the latenight TV shows and
the radio broadcasts start to drive him crazy; his
scribblings (abstract and theoretical, and have little
beyond crass generalization to say about the people
or the land) never coalesce, and the images in
polaroid pictures he take don't coincide with the
real places, as if they were haunted by ghosts.
As he is returning to Europe, he runs into Alice and
her mother, who leaves the girl in his charge.
They wait for her in vain in Amsterdam, and start
out in a wickedly absurd search for Alice's grandmother
with the scantiest of information and less cash in
their pockets. All of Wenders' best films are about
a search, and the road trip morph into a metaphysical
search for Winter's humanity and identity. One never
knows if Alice is lying just to prevent Winter from
leaving her, but by some blind luck they manage
to find the grandmother's house (the image here
amazingly coincides with the real thing in his home
country!) ... yet there are more twists to follow. But the
journey, not the destination, is the real story. The
sweetly funny rapport between the two protagonists
20 years apart in age makes this film unforgettable.
The film and images are so eloquent that there is
no need for the long monologue at the movie's
end (a Wenders trademark in his early years).
We only need to watch the train go by.
The cinematography suffers from the VHS format
(I first saw this film as a pristine print af the Pacific
Film Archive), but Robby Muller's ultra high contrast
lighting (the pitch black skin of Chuck Berry, the
almost whited out audience in the stands) still impress.
But a DVD treatment is *way* overdue. |
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