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Rating: Year 1976: when Wim Wenders was a great director.
Coming of age journey, because this work by the German director is a "road movie".
A "road movie" with an incredible formal and narrative balance, as perhaps he has never been able to (re)create. A "road movie" where time is the protagonist and it is time that measures the road, not the kilometers.
The two protagonists, Bruno Winter (nicknamed King of the road) and Robert Lander (nicknamed Kamikaze), meet by chance. Robert drives his car into a river, determined to commit suicide (hence the nickname), as Bruno has just woken up in his van and witnesses the scene. Bruno is a film projector repairman who travels around Germany, working in small local cinemas. From here, their journey together begins...
Initially, the two are quite distant, cold with each other, something Wenders makes plainly clear: he never shows them in the same frame, and it is only after two days of travel that they introduce themselves to each other.
The dialogues are essential, sparse but full of meaning ("I don't care about your story; I care about who you are!" says Bruno to Robert). While the silences are densely filled: slowly filled by the spaces of the road, the surrounding landscape, the wheels of the van grinding the road. Here Wenders surpasses himself in truly intense geometric shots, never formal, always laden with symbolism.
As time goes by, the two establish a friendship, or rather a mutual understanding, because this is not a film about friendship; rather, it is the meeting of two different individuals sharing an experience that will inevitably lead them to take different paths: in this regard, the scene of the separation at the end of the journey with glances and whispered words is suggestive and touching. There are many "decisive" moments in the film; one of the most intense is undoubtedly the casual improvisation in a cinema of a sort of comedic act "Chinese shadows," both amusing and melancholic at the same time, reminiscent of Chaplin.
A film where images of intimate lyricism coexist with frames of everyday starkness with disarming naturalness. Also noteworthy is the film's beautiful photography, a deep black and white, marked like an indelible memory. Special mention also goes to the wonderful soundtrack composed by Axel Lintsadt.
Yet, it should not be forgotten that this is a film that reflects on (European) cinema, which according to Wenders, was being lost... But there are multiple interpretations of this film, which renews with each viewing. After all, "everything must change" over time it is (perhaps) possible.
Masterpiece.
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