Alice in the Cities (1974)
Directed by Wim Wenders
German journalist Philip Winter has a case of writer’s block when trying to write an article about the United States. He decides to return to Germany, and while trying to book a flight, encounters a German woman and her nine year old daughter Alice doing the same. The three become friends (almost out of necessity) and while the mother asks Winter to mind Alice temporarily, it quickly becomes apparent that Alice will be his responsibility for longer than he expected.
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What critics compared Alice in the Cities to
And like German director Wim Wenders ("Paris, Texas," "Alice in the Cities"), whose un-Americanness allowed him to see the country, and road genre, in a fresh way, Arnold's outsider status enables her to present America in ways we may overlook.
Wim Wenders ("Hammett"/"The State of Things"/"Alice In The Cities") directs and Sam Shepard writes the script (it was also adapted by L.M. Kit Carson) for this overly ambitious but at times compelling contemporary Western that debunks the John Ford "Old West" myth in The Searchers, or at least brings to it a more updated perception.
Previously he had explored the more closed-in spaces of Europe in the German language films "Alice in the Cities" (1974) and "Kings of the Road" (1976) but with "Paris, Texas" (1984) he turned his gaze (and Robbie Müller´s) to the wide-open highways and byways of America which fascinated so many European directors (Wenders´ New German Cinema compatriot Werner Herzog took a similar turn in 1977´s "Stroszek.")
It’s unmistakably a Wenders film, of a piece with Alice in the Cities and Kings of the Road and Wings of Desire, and the mix of Wenders’ sensibilities and love of American movies and Sam Shepard’s spare writing and take on fractured American families creates a sublime vision.
Shepard contributed his larger-than-life, thicker-than-blood combustive brothers and lovers to Paris, Texas , but a child and a man teaming up to search for a mother, as Travis and his son do, is pure Wenders (see his early masterpiece Alice in the Cities ).
This is Wenders's fourth film shot at least partly in America (the others were "Alice in the Cities," " The American Friend ," and "Hammett").
After much ado we eventually get on the road, and instead of following typical superhero formulas Logan bites off massive chunks from other movies like Children Of Men, Firestarter, True Grit, The Professional, Terminator 2, Alice In The Cities, The Outlaw Josey Wales, A Perfect World and hell, pretty much the entire cinema of Clint Eastwood until the last-half hour when it becomes a straight-up remake of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
In his most successfully realized narrative feature in years, Wim Wenders returns to the road in Perfect Days, a thematic motif upon which he built his early career with his thematic trilogy, Alice in the Cities (1974), Wrong Move (1974), and Kings of the Road (1975).