alice in the cities

the more of the films i see for the cinema cities project the more this is going to become a filmy blog. cant help it. this is the third or the fourth wim wender film i have seen. ‘wings of desire’ and ‘a trick of the light’ were the others and what i remember from both were the lingering pan/track/crane shots of berlin. in wings of desire in gorgeous black and white and in the second film that beautiful shot of potsdamer platz under construction. in alice in the cities we move in vehicles through the landscape of neon lit motels in america and enter new york via the subway and the tunnels, fly across the atlantic, a boat in amsterdam, buses and cars through various towns in germany. the story is these landscapes as the two characters- the journalist who is lost for words and takes refuge in images that never seem to capture what he is trying to, or the little girl abandoned by her mother to a stranger drift through the cities on a search for something that they eventually never find. it is perhaps too easy to project wenders as the journalist and us as the little girl lost staring out of the window as the buildings and trees drift by.