Kings of the Road (1976)
Directed by Wim Wenders
Itinerant projection-equipment repairman Bruno Winter and depressed hitchhiker Robert Lander - a doctor who has just been through a break-up with his wife and a half-hearted suicide attempt - travel along the Western side of the East-German border in a repair truck, visiting worn-out movie theaters, learning to communicate across their differences.
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What critics compared Kings of the Road to
It’s a film of moments, observations and moods, with a lyrical unfolding that recalls such atmospheric monochrome road movies as Wim Wenders ’ "Kings of the Road."
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).
Wim Wenders is a titan of European cinema with acclaimed German language films like Kings of the Road, Wings of Desire and Wrong Move, he is perhaps best known for his English language film Paris, Texas.
I don’t think I’m spoiling or depreciating the loveliness of “Perfect Days” when I say that it’s very much the work of an older director. Not in terms of energy (of which there’s plenty), but rather an experienced attitude. Where Wenders’ unforgettable road movies of yore (“Kings of the Road,” “Paris, Texas”) wandered memorably in contemplating our place in the world, this film beams and buzzes inside its closed loop with the hard-won wisdom of acceptance.
Not to get too gross or salty about it, but I’d say, given “Kings of the Road,” I don’t think Wenders owes us anything in the shit department. (In this late ‘70s film the lead character relieves himself on a beach on screen; the action is depicted naturalistically and nonchalantly, in long shot; nevertheless, one commenter on Roger’s review pronounced the scene as “sick.” Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, I guess.)
His “Kings of the Road” (1974) was a three-hour odyssey in which two men wander the border between East and West Germany in a VW bus, sharing confessions and insights, learning that they cannot live with women and cannot live without them.
Perhaps Wenders sees him as an alter ego, looking for a plot much as the director did with his road films "Paris, Texas" and "Kings of the Road."
It's perhaps Wim Wenders ("Until the End of the World"/"The American Friend"/"Wings of Desire") most brilliant and original film, at least it's the one I most admire.
A good number of his movies deal with characters that travel from one place to another, especially the three-hour Kings of the Road (1976), which is sadly absent from DVD. Happily, his best-known and best-loved road movie Paris, Texas (1984) has just been re-issued in a beautiful Criterion Collection edition, available on both DVD and Blu-Ray.
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.")
“Kings of the Road,” 1976), with which it has definite affinities.
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.
His earlier films Wrong Move (1975) and Kings of the Road (1976) highlight this.
Wenders has made road films throughout his career like 1974 film Alice in the Cities and, two years later, Kings of the Road , but none more poignant than Paris, Texas .