Kings of the Road

Wim Wenders : 1976
Im Lauf der Zeit

Bruno Winter is a travelling projection-equipment mechanic working in West Germany along the East German border, visiting worn-out theatres. He meets the depressed Robert Lander, who has just been through a break-up with his wife, after he drives his car into a river in a half-hearted suicide attempt. Bruno allows Robert to ride with him while his clothes dry. While out on the road, Bruno and Robert encounter several people in various states of despair, including a man whose wife has committed suicide by driving her car into a tree. Robert also drops in on his elderly father to berate him for disrespecting Robert's mother. After Bruno and Robert have a minor brawl after a conversation about Robert and his wife, Robert finally leaves Bruno, though Bruno later spots him riding on a train. Bruno continues his visits to theatres, including one that no longer screens films because the owner regards modern films as exploitative. Wim Wenders' third part of his Road Movie trilogy had its international premiere in competition at Festival de Cannes 1976.

Wrong Move

Wim Wenders : 1975
Falsche Bewegung

Aiming to be a writer, Wilhelm leaves mother and girlfriend in his home town of Glückstadt in the far north of Germany and sets out for Bonn. Changing trains at Hamburg, he is struck by a beautiful actress, Therese, and obtains her phone number. In his compartment are an older man Laertes, who mostly communicates by blowing a mouth organ, and a teenage female acrobat called Mignon, who is mute. The pair have no money, so Wilhelm pays their fare and puts them up in his cheap hotel, where Therese joins them. Bernhard, an awkward Austrian who wants to be a poet, befriends the four. He says he has a rich uncle with a castle on a peak overlooking the Rhine, but when the five turn up it is the wrong place. The owner welcomes them however, because their arrival stopped him shooting himself, and says they can stay as long as they like. But tensions grow, for Wilhelm is not giving Therese the affection she wants, while Mignon signals her availability to him. Laertes, feeling guilt but not repentant, disgusts Wilhelm by revealing some of his role in the Holocaust. Then the owner of castle hangs himself, upon which the five leave hastily. Bernhard goes off while Therese takes the other three to her small flat in Frankfurt, where the tensions grow worse. Leaving on his own, Wilhelm completes his symbolic journey by reaching one of the most southerly, highest and emptiest points in Germany, the summit of the Zugspitze.

Alice in the Cities

Wim Wenders : 1974
Alice in den Städten

German writer Philip Winter has missed his publisher's deadline for writing an article about the United States. Attempting to book a flight from New York City, he discovers that there is an airline strike in Germany. He meets a German woman, Lisa, and her young daughter, Alice, who are also trying to return home. After Lisa leaves Alice temporarily in Philip's care, she disappears to deal with a relationship she has recently terminated. Philip and Alice take a flight to Amsterdam on the expectation that they will meet Lisa there, only to find she never arrived at the airport. When Alice is unwilling to stay in the Amsterdam airport alone while Philip leaves, the two decide to return to West Germany where Philip can deliver Alice to her grandmother's home. Unfortunately, Alice can't remember her grandmother's name or address, except that she may live in Wuppertal, the only clue being a photograph of her grandmother's front door with no house number and no one in the shot. After searching through Wuppertal, Alice admits her grandmother doesn't live there and that she only wanted them both to stay in Amsterdam. Enraged, Philip turns Alice over to the police, but Alice walks out of the police station and returns to him remembering that her grandmother lives in Ruhr. The two begin to bond as they travel to Ruhr, and the search comes to an end when the police spot them and inform Philip that Lisa has been found. Philip cannot afford to buy a train ticket so as he is saying goodbye to Alice at the railway station she gives him the money so that he can go with her on the train. He accepts Alice's offer and the film ends with the two of them riding a train back to Munich.