 Starring: Sam Shepard, Tim Roth, Gabriel Mann, Sarah Polley, Jessica LangeDirector: Wim Wenders Year Of Release: 2005 Plot: Howard Spence used to be a big-time western movie star, but now he hates himself and spends his time drinking, taking drugs and sleeping with young women. He sets off on a journey into his past, looking for a woman he left behind 20 years before, however the company making his latest movie wants him back on the set, while a young woman is on her own journey, which will eventually intersect with Howards. |
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Wim Wenders is a wonderful director. While hes occasionally gone slightly Hollywood, such as the Mel Gibson starrer Million Dollar Hotel and, to a certain extent, The End Of Violence, over the last 40 years the German helmer has largely stuck with the arthouse, creating tales that play with genres and take them to unexpected places. Hes directed some of the most fascinating movies of the last 20 years, most of which deserve to be far more widely seen than they have been. So here are the top 5 Wim Wenders movie that Id more than recommend you check out if you havent seen them.
5. Dont Come Knocking (2005)
Although it was largely ignored on its release and got some bad reviews, I feel thats more because Dont Come Knocking is a movie that on the surface seems like it going to be one thing, when actually it something else. It appears like its going to be a rather typical tale of a washed-up movie star (Sam Shepard) on the road to redemption, and if you think its going to be that youll be slightly disappointed and feel its a bit pointless and meandering (as well as implausible if you ignore the symbolism). However like many Wenders movie (including his previous triumphant collaboration with writer Seam Shepard, Paris Texas), its not a film about saving someone so they can have a better future, but about reconciling with your past and dealing with the difficulty of redemption.
4. Buena Vista Social Club (1999)
The only time Wenders ever got a sniff at an Oscar was with Buena Vista Social Club, and perhaps surprisingly for a man whos primarily directed fiction, it was a nomination in the Best Documentary category. The film sees Wenders following musician and composer Ry Cooder (who wrote the score for several of Wenders films) as he tries to unite a group of legendary Cuban musicians, so they can record an album and play a concert in America. Along with some truly brilliant music, Wenders camera peers at the aging musicians, getting them to talk about their life, as well as the fact that despite Cuba and the US being geographically close, due to the political problems many of them have never been to America before.
3. The American Friend (1977)
Never one to go the typical route, when Wenders decided to adapt Patricia Highsmiths 1974 novel, Ripleys Game (the third in the series featuring Tom Ripley), he turned it is something more unusual than your typical crime tale, which is both modern and experimental, as well as a homage to classic film noir. It is in many ways a tough and occasionally impenetrable movie, but its definitely worth the effort. The late, great Dennis Hopper plays the wonderfully ambiguous, manipulative criminal Ripley, who coerces a terminally ill German picture framer into becoming an assassin. A metaphor for the relationship between America and post-war Germany, its an intriguing movie worth seeking out.
2. Wings Of Desire (1987)
Its almost incredible that a movie as insipid as the Nicolas Cage/Meg Ryan film City Of Angels could be a remake of something as wonderful as Wings Of Desire (or Der Himmel Uber Berlin The Sky Over Berlin as it was originally called). The film follows two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, who cannot interact with the world and can only be seen by children, but whose job is to record and testify to reality. Damiel begins to fall in love with a circus trapeze artist. He also meets Peter Falk, who reveals he used to be an angel, but gave up immortality to experience the physical world, and soon Damiel follows suit. Meanwhile Cassiel learns the pain of being able to know but not interact with the world. A mood piece which explores the past, present and future of Berlin, it is a truly beautiful movie that brilliantly evokes a sense of longing, and the painful desire to feel connected. The story was continued in the not as good but still interesting 1993 movie, Faraway So Close.
1. Paris, Texas (1984)
Undoubtedly one of the greatest arthouse movies of the last 30 years, Paris, Texas is a glorious meditation on loneliness, family, the desire for redemption and the barriers between who we are and who we want to be. Its a film that takes the conventions of the road movie and then upends them, with Harry Dean Stanton as a man who wanders out of the desert, not knowing who he is. Its soon discovered his name is Travis and hes been missing for four years after walking out on his wife and child. His brother (Dean Stockwell) then helps him to put his life back together, as Travis tries to remember and understand what happened to him. Although slow and somewhat strange, Paris Texas is a wonderfully evocative and beautiful film, which a stunning score and includes a few sequences which are masterclasses in filmmaking. The movie achieved the rare sweep of being named top film by all three juries at Cannes, including winning the Palm DOr, as well as scoring Wenders the Best Director BAFTA. It is a glorious film and a great example of arthouse filmmaking at its very best, both questioning the conventions of cinema and creating something that peers deep into the human soul.
TIM ISAAC
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