Nothing is worse than turning from the recent UK DVD releases of Wenders’ great films from the seventies (Alice In The Cities, Wrong Move, and Kings of the Road) to his latest effort, Palermo Shooting, this study of a German photographer in crisis who ends up finding himself in Palermo, and escaping from Death as played by a be-cloaked, arrow-and-bow-wielding Dennis Hopper. Of course, Wenders hasn’t made anything better than a halfway-decent film for the last twenty years – did Wings of Desire completely burn him out? – and as much as Don’tt Come Knocking was a ho-hum, unnecessary affair, nothing can prepare you for the disaster of Palermo Shooting, a mish-mash of fantasy and dream sequences that attempt to divert your attention from a screenplay which is banal when it’s not simply stupid. I suffered to the end, but it’s been a long time since I wanted to walk out of a film so much.
by Ian Johnston | Source: 35mm Print
10 Nov 2008 4:40 AM | Comments (2)
I like Until the End of the World sometimes and am even curiously fond of Lisbon Story (which is sort of a sequel to The State of Things), but I agree that virtually everything else he’s done in the last two decades is absolute crap. The End of Violence has to be one of the most enervating film-watching experiences of my life, and the maddening superficiality of a film like Buena Vista Social Club very nearly ruins a brilliant album for me.
Then again, I’m also the rare person that believes Wenders’ career ended with Paris, Texas and not Wings of Desire, which I also find dubious and shallow (however beautifully shot). But few filmmakers can match his amazing run of films in the 1970s, which deserves far more attention than it generally receives.
Right, I’m with you on the intermittent pleasures of Until The End of the World and the charm of Lisbon Story. I had the impression that a distaste for Wings of Desire was not so rare. For me it’s something of an art-movie guilty pleasure, but there are so many things that win me over – the black and white, Peter Falk, Nick Cave, the incantatory style of Handke’s language (Als das Kind Kind war, wusste es nicht, dass es Kind war, alles war ihm beseelt, the beauty of the German really does get lost in translation).
leo
11 November 2008
11:54 AM
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