Alice in the Cities (1974)
Directed by: Wim
Wenders.
Written by: Wim
Wenders and Veith von Fürstenberg.
Starring: Rüdiger Vogler (Philip
'Phil' Winter), Yella Rottländer (Alice), Lisa Kreuzer (Lisa - Alice's Mother),
Edda Köchl (Angela - Friend in New York), Ernest Boehm (Publisher), Sam Presti
(Car Dealer), Lois Moran (Airport Hostess), Didi Petrikat (Friend in
Frankfurt), Hans Hirschmüller (Police Officer), Sibylle Baier (The Woman).
The first
film in Wim Wenders so called Road Trilogy is one of the simplest films Wenders
ever made. It begins with a German journalist – recurring Wenders character
Phil Winter (Rüdiger Vogler) travelling across America by car, and supposedly
writing a story about America’s wide open spaces, but instead just taking a lot
of pictures. When he gets to New York, his editor isn’t happy that he hasn’t
written anything, and Phil has to get home to Berlin quickly, to write
something – he’s low on money to boot. It’s in the airport that he meets Lisa
(Lisa Kreuzer) and her daughter Alice (Yella Rottländer) – all of about 8.
She’s also German, also needs to get home quickly – but like Phil, is stranded
until the next flight the following day. They spend the night at a hotel together
– not sexually – and when he wakes up, he finds that Lisa has essentially
abandoned Alice in his care – telling him to fly off to Amsterdam with her
daughter, and she’ll be along the next day. Against his better judgment, he
does that – but, of course, Lisa doesn’t show up. They spend time in Amsterdam
together, and then head to a series of small German towns – apparently looking
for Alice’s grandmother. Alice doesn’t have an address – but knows where she
lives, at least she thinks she does.
In many
ways, Alice in the Cities works as a time capsule movie – capturing things that
will never exist again. This is evident in the very premise of the plot of
course – it would be unthinkable today for a stranger to take a Transatlantic
flight with an 8-year-old they didn’t know these days. But it’s also in Phil’s
view of America – and in particular New York. The New York we see here is in
many ways tourist-y (the only way I’ve ever really seen it) – but that makes
sense, since Phil himself is a tourist. You see landmarks that are gone
forever, or forever changed in New York. In a sense, the romantic notion of
driving across America is gone now too. What was once a chance to see a bunch
of individual small towns and cities, each unique in their own way, would now
just be a series of strip malls and chain stores – so that each place is
exactly like the last. That is already sinking into to Phil as he drives across
America anyway – and will become even clearer in Germany, as they go to one
small town after another. The existential ennui is the same wherever he goes –
Europe has become Americanized, somehow robbing both places of what once made
them special.
In a
strange way, what keeps Alice in the Cities from being just pretentious
existential longing without much of a point is Alice herself – played in a
remarkable performance by Rottländer. Her Alice is very much still a kid, and
Wenders treats her as such. She is childlike in the way she talks and thinks –
the way she lies to Phil. The way she sneaks off to a bathroom at the airport
to cry when she realizes her mother isn’t there to collect her yet. There is a
childlike simplicity to the way she sees things that plays nicely off of Phil.
They have a goofy sort of chemistry together. The dialogue Wenders gives her
would sound too simplistic, too on the nose, coming out of an adult’s mouth –
but from a child, it makes sense. So many adults don’t know how to write for
children – so they end up being little adults. Wenders doesn’t make this
mistake.
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