Phillip Winter travels to America and finds an empty, desolate wasteland of signifiers and empty advertising, neon signs and empty beaches. He takes pictures but cannot write, and he compares the pictures he takes to reality and seems to find them uncomplimentary. In this aggrieved, meaningless state, he runs across a mother and daughter, the daughter's name Alice, similarly stuck in America without purpose. The mother sends Alice with Phil back to Europe, and seemingly abandons her. It is up to Phil to return Alice to her family, setting the stage for a good road-trip movie.
At least, that is what the movie would lead you to believe, provided the peculiar structure of the opening scenes haven't already unsettled you. Actually, little Alice pulls off something of an area effect enchantment, seducing both Phil and the audience into her own profoundly selfish judgment of the world because neither have anything else to work off of. Just as Phil absurdly listens to Alice's incomplete memories of her grandparents', we take comfort in the familiar disenchanted elder redeemed by innocent youth narrative. And, in a crafty move from Wenders, just as Phil recognizes the absurdities of his own actions but goes along with them anyway, always beneath the flattened imagery of this movie is the knowledge that the signifiers have been removed from the narrative and that eventually the journey will go nowhere. Why do we watch the movie, then? Precisely why Phillip Winters follows Alice across Europe: because it's preferable than submitting to the nothingness.
This would be the first Wim Wenders movie I've seen, and as such fills a giant gap in my cinematic experience. I am eager to move on to more. He is quite clearly a talented director.
--PolarisDiB
At least, that is what the movie would lead you to believe, provided the peculiar structure of the opening scenes haven't already unsettled you. Actually, little Alice pulls off something of an area effect enchantment, seducing both Phil and the audience into her own profoundly selfish judgment of the world because neither have anything else to work off of. Just as Phil absurdly listens to Alice's incomplete memories of her grandparents', we take comfort in the familiar disenchanted elder redeemed by innocent youth narrative. And, in a crafty move from Wenders, just as Phil recognizes the absurdities of his own actions but goes along with them anyway, always beneath the flattened imagery of this movie is the knowledge that the signifiers have been removed from the narrative and that eventually the journey will go nowhere. Why do we watch the movie, then? Precisely why Phillip Winters follows Alice across Europe: because it's preferable than submitting to the nothingness.
This would be the first Wim Wenders movie I've seen, and as such fills a giant gap in my cinematic experience. I am eager to move on to more. He is quite clearly a talented director.
--PolarisDiB