1976 road movie
Rating: 18/20
Plot: A roving movie theater projector repairman befriends a suicidal man, and the two embark on a road trip.
"Who are you?"
"I am my story."
Maybe I'm biased because there's a reference to my birthplace of Terre Haute, Indiana, in this German road movie, but I loved this thing. Come for the extended shot of Rudiger Volger (still sounds like a James Bond villain to me) taking a very healthy dump and stay for the exploration of time and place, an almost accidental character study or two. Volger, the star of the other two Wenders' road movies in the trilogy, has got himself a mustache in this one, and he's much goofier here. He spins, he giggles, he drinks by holding a glass with a pair of tongs. He takes that healthy dump, and I love these shots of him watching his new friend played by Hanns Zischler. Volger's characters in these are all enigmatic. While on the surface, this one seems like a tough nut to crack, this Bruno Winter might be the one who is the easiest to figure out. He's a character comforted by his story being him moving through specific places at specific times, and that's something we can all identify with.
Almost all road movies use the journey as a metaphor, but Wenders does it that a little more profoundly here. I also liked a sketchy link to a meandering trip like this and the "fantasy" of learning letters and words, especially since this is a movie that rarely depends on language to get its points across.
And, there's a masturbating projectionist! So that's exciting.
Robert Muller once again was the cinematographer, and I also loved the music, most of it from somebody with the cool name Axel Linstadt.
This was my favorite of the three Wenders road movies, but all three were great.
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