Kings of the Road (1976)
Directed by: Wim
Wenders.
Written by: Wim
Wenders.
Starring: Rüdiger Vogler (Bruno
Winter), Hanns Zischler (Robert Lander), Lisa Kreuzer (Pauline,
cashier), Rudolf Schündler (Robert's Father), Marquard Bohm (Man Who Lost His
Wife), Hans Dieter Trayer (Paul, garage owner), Franziska Stömmer (Cinema
owner), Patric Kreuzer (Little boy).
Kings of
the Road is the final film in Wim Wenders’ loosely connected Road Trilogy –
made in three consecutive years in the mid-1970s. It’s the longest and best of
the three films. All three films have different views of the road – none of
them overly romantic. Alice in the Cities is about a writer in search of
something that is no longer there. Wrong Move is about a writer who goes to the
road in search of answers – and comes back with none. Kings of the Road is
about two men who spend time on the road as a way to hide – a way to avoid real
life, real connections, real emotions. When you spend all your time driving
from one place to the next – you never have to settle down, never have to connect
with anyone. One of the two men may just be a road lifer – someone who will
find any excuse to stay out there on the road. The other is only there
temporarily – he may not be any more successful in his real life when he
returns – but at least he’s trying.
The film
opens with a long scene between Bruno (Wenders’ favorite Rüdiger Vogler) and a
small town cinema owner. The owner has run this theater for years – he had to
sue to get it back in the early 1950s, because he was a party member. The
theater used to be enough to support him and his family – but not anymore.
Bruno, who makes his living driving from own small theater to another in these
towns along the border between West and East Germany, observes that in 10
years, all of these small town theaters will be gone – many are gone already,
and the ones still around aren’t making the money they used to. Bruno can do
whatever is needed in the theaters – he repairs projects, speakers, etc. – and
he travels around in his large van with all of his equipment. He sleeps in the
back, eats from places on the side of the road – and yes, we even see him shit
there as well. He’s been doing for two years – by himself – and there’s no sign
he’s stopping.
The other
man who will eventually join Bruno is Robert Lander (Hanns Zischler) – a
pediatrician of sorts, who we first see flying down the road in his convertible
– which he then crashes into a pond in a pathetic suicide attempt. It doesn’t
work of course, and he sheepishly walks out of the water, and needs a ride.
Bruno has witnessed this whole thing – and agrees. Robert tries to explain some
things – he and his wife is getting a divorce, etc. – but Bruno cuts him off.
No backstories he warns. And for the most part, Robert agrees. For the next
three hours, they are on the road together – often barely saying a word.
There is
a lengthy section in the middle of the film where the pair split apart. They
are near Robert’s hometown, and he goes back to see his father for the first
time in years – his father never even met Robert’s wife, that he is now
separated from. He is there to confront his father for his past – for the way
he treated his mother. His father runs a small town newspaper – not
coincidentally, another dying industry – and he doesn’t quite know what to say
to his son. While this is happening, Bruno is at another small town movie
theater – this one surviving by showing porno films – and he spends time
helping out, and flirting with the cashier – Pauline (Lisa Kreuzer). Their
scenes together are tender and sweet – but also shows perhaps why Bruno is on
the road in the first place. He’s awkward around her – has difficulty interacting
with her, and pretty much ends up hiding away again – this time in the
projector booth. She has to come and get him from there.
As with
all three films in the trilogy, Kings of the Road is about Germany reconciling
itself to its past – a past that is still there in their everyday lives. The
former Nazis are getting older, but they’re still there. It is also, much like
Alice in the Cities was, about the Americanization of Germany - in the words of
one of the characters America has “colonized their subconscious”. It’s about
the declining German film industry – there is a reason all these theaters are
closing. The New German Cinema was alive and well at this time (it’s actually
closer to the end of that period rather than the beginning) – but didn’t exactly
draw large audiences. Kings of the Road – one of the best of this period – is
perhaps proof why. How many people really do want to see a three hour, black
and white film like this?
Well, you
should – we all should. It is a brilliant movie, occasionally very entertaining
– an extended silent movie gag the two men play out behind the screen for an
audience of kids is quite funny. And it is a very insightful film into these
two men – and men in general, and their problems with women. Pauline, the cashier,
is the only major female character – and she’s in the movie for perhaps 20
minutes. The rest of the movie is about these two men, who have problems
communicating – even with each other. It’s rather telling that after they truly
reveal something about themselves to each other – a long night in an abandoned
shed – that they almost immediately have to part ways.
On its
own, Kings of the Road is a great film. Taken together with Alice in the Cities
and Wrong Move – it’s even better. All three films act as a time capsule of a
certain moment in German history – that postwar period, where the children of
those alive in the war started to come of age, and had to reckon with what
their parents had done – and a way forward for themselves. It was a dark time,
and Wenders’ captures it well in these three films – aided wonderfully by cinematography
Robby Muller – doing his best work of the trilogy here – alongside Vogler and
Zischler and Kreuzer. It’s been a while since Wenders made a great film – or
perhaps even a good film. But here, at his weak (which would last at least
another decade or so – since we still had The American Friend, Paris Texas and
Wings of Desire to go) – he was making films as good as anyone. If it weren’t
for Paris, Texas – Kings of the Road may well have been his masterpiece.
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