Palermo Shooting (Wim Wenders, 2008)

[Tommaso]

Wenders' new film premiered at Cannes yesterday, and here's a first review (in German).

Looks interesting, as expected Wenders seems to be back searching for his 'European roots' and adopting his old theme about how we are 'seeing' reality . I only have doubts about the casting of the main character: Campino, singer of German mainstream 'punk' band "Die Toten Hosen" sounds like a rather dubious choice to me (but perhaps that's only because I can't stand the band). Has anyone seen this in Cannes by any chance and would care to share some thoughts?

[sir karl]

Clips from the movie: 1 - 2

[Antoine Doinel]

Here's the German trailer (and website). The soundtrack is pretty interesting: Grinderman, Iron & Wine, Calexico, Velvet Underground, Bonnie "Prince Billy & Matt Sweeney among others.

[Tommaso]

This is running in German cinemas now, and I watched it yesterday evening.

Well, with recent Wenders films I often had problems at first and began to like and love them on a second viewing, but I don't think this will happen with this one. I had hoped that Wenders' return to Europe would enable him to pick up the marvellous thread of films from "Himmel über Berlin" to "Lisbon Story", but it seems the man has run totally out-of-steam. Though the film follows the familiar Wenders lines of contemplating what we see, how we lose touch with reality through images et al, this time Wenders has little to say that he hadn't said before in much more convincing ways. The worst aspect of the film are the unbelievably banal dialogues contemplating the great metaphysical questions in a way you'd rather expect to find in some sort of "Transcendence for Hobby Esoterics" kind of book (I know some people would say the same about "Himmel über Berlin", but the difference is lightyears, really). I can't translate this into English, because the 'joke' only really functions in German, but at one point the main character looks at his mobile and says to himself: " 23 Anrufe in Abwesenheit. Hmm... Wann war ich eigentlich das letztemal anwesend?" And that's not even the worst example. Wait for Frank aka Mr.Death (played by Dennis Hopper) making his speeches... Even though I generally like films in which death is personified, Wenders' approach to the character adds absolutely nothing to the 'well, I'm actually your friend' kind of thinking, and is utterly removed from the inventiveness of "The Seventh Seal" or "Orphée" in this respect. And yes, Hopper has to make his great final speech in a sort of library/inventory of files of the deceased (bad cgi in this bit on top of it)...
About singer Campino as an actor: well, he's pretty stiff, but I believe this too is rather Wenders' fault than his. I can't imagine a professional actor would have delivered what the director required from him in a considerably more convincing way.

At least one aspect of the film functions as well as anything in Wenders: the images. Filmed again by Franz Lustig, some of the film is just breathtakingly beautiful (especially, of course, the Palermo parts), and Giovanna Mezzogiorno gives a fine performance as Flavia. And yes, the music is good. But I'm not sure this is enough to save the film. Almost as bad as "The End of Violence".

[sir karl]

Thanks for your review Tommaso! That's a real shame but it only confirms the overall bad reviews scattered throughout the internet. Funnily enough The End of Violence is the only Wenders film I have yet resisted the impulse to watch. But as it seems, I'll have to skip this movie too when/if it hits the cinema here.

[Tommaso]

I had only read some German reviews on "Palermo Shooting", and even though they were bad (almost all of them), I didn't believe them, because Wenders famously had had a difficult standing over here ever since "Until the end of the world". But in this case, I have to agree with the negative assessments.
Nevertheless, given the current state of German cinema, "Palermo" might still be a film worth seeing (as is "The End of Violence" in my view), flawed as it is. Bad Wenders is still more intriguing than passable Tykwer...

[accatone]

German cinema in the last 10 years made major improvements to the early 90s and 80s! This might be a little off topic but must be said.

[Barmy]

His musical choices always reek of LOOK AT ME I AM SO COOL I JUST DISCOVERED THIS UNDERGROUND BAND CALLED THE ZUTONS THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD OF!!!11 The best way of knowing whether a band is over is if their music appears in a Wenders film.

That said, yes, bad Wenders is better than virtually any German cinema of the last 20 years. Frankly I love his crappy films more than some of the early "road" flicks that some regard as masterpieces. Until The End of The World is his only completely useless film. I still laugh when I think of that Solveig chick screaming in the Outback because of that video thangy.

Palermo looks crappy, therefore I can't wait to see it.

[Finch]

Tommaso, that line of dialogue you quoted, couldn't that be accurately translated as "23 calls in your absence" and the character saying "when was the last time I've actually been here/present?". (I agree though the joke works better in German)

I liked "Der Himmel ueber Berlin" and "The American Friend" but couldn't stand Million Dollar Hotel and I was never really that interested in Palermo. Raves might have swayed me to give it a try but the negative reviews from Cannes sealed it.

For what it's worth, I don't agree German cinema of the last 20 years is worthless. There have been good to outstanding films like Der Totmacher, Goodbye Lenin or The Counterfeiters (didn't care for The Lives of Others).

[Tommaso]

Tommaso, that line of dialogue you quoted, couldn't that be accurately translated as "23 calls in your absence" and the character saying "when was the last time I've actually been here/present?". (I agree though the joke works better in German)

Yes, this is a fine translation! The problem is only: in the film it isn't even meant as joke, but it's one of Campino's dead-serious musings.

About the music: well, there WAS a time when Wenders used comparatively 'new' and 'stylish' music for its time, early Nick Cave in "Himmel über Berlin", some Minimal Compact in another film, the fantastic, very Tuxedomoon-style instrumental score for "Notebook on Cities and Clothes", and of course - my favourite - Madredeus when they were still rather unknown. Look at "Palermo" now : we again have Cave, we get Lou Reed (also in a rather ghastly, but thankfully short on-screen appearance), and a lot of other bands far away from any sort of 'on the edge'-approach . That's not a bad thing in itself, but it indicates a certain standstill, perhaps nostalgia, of Wenders even in this respect.

For what it's worth, I don't agree German cinema of the last 20 years is worthless. There have been good to outstanding films like Der Totmacher, Goodbye Lenin or The Counterfeiters (didn't care for The Lives of Others).

We had that discussion in some other thread quite recently, and I'm still surprised that others don't see the new 'uprising' of contemporary cinema as more than the fact that some recent German films have had a lot of commercial success here and also abroad. I couldn't stand "Goodbye Lenin" or "The Perfume", for example, and quite liked von Borries' "Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken", but that's no my point here. I'm also not talking of someone like Ottinger at the other end of the spectrum, whom I like, though she's not necessarily a favourite (and has been around since the late 70s or early 80s anyway). What I'm missing in successful German cinema nowadays is the inventiveness of 70s German cinema, with names like Herzog, Schilling (!) and indeed Wenders, and also the questioning and visual invention in their various approaches. In many films of that era I have a true feeling of newness, of something different at least, and all that without the pompousness of the seriousness that Wenders has in this latest film (even if not all the films by those directors or early Wenders are necessarily great).
But I suppose I'm just hopelessly old-fashioned and nostalgic in my own way, too, and if you asked me about what is relevant in German cinema, I would of course immediately start to talk about Lang and Murnau...

[tavernier]

Giovanna Mezzogiorno

That's all I needed to hear: this is now a must-see. =P~

[Finch]

Nick Cave score in Palermo? Think I may have to watch it after all. Regarding Wenders in general, I think I need to see more of his films still before I feel I have an informed opinion (Alice in the Cities sounds appealing to me).

You're right, Tom, in that contemporary German cinema doesn't seem to have another Herzog in store (but then which country does?) but having said that, I'm curious about the works of Christian Petzold who has had some exposure in the UK (Requiem and another film the title of which escapes me just now). He seems to work across genres from what I have read about him. Not sure how english-friendly German DVDs of their modern films are.. (back to Palermo now, don't want to drag this off-topic further)

[Tommaso]

Nick Cave score in Palermo? Think I may have to watch it after all.

Well, it's just two or three briefly played songs (at least one by Cave, and another by Grinderman), I'm not even sure whether they were composed specifically for this film. I didn't really follow Cave's work anymore in the last five years or so.

Regarding Wenders in general, I think I need to see more of his films still before I feel I have an informed opinion (Alice in the Cities sounds appealing to me).

I have to confess that "Alice" is one of the very few Wenders films I haven't seen, stupidly. Everyone seems to praise it. And everyone praises Petzold, too, but he's hardly a very successful filmmaker here.

[accatone]

But I suppose I'm just hopelessly old-fashioned and nostalgic in my own way, too, and if you asked me about what is relevant in German cinema, I would of course immediately start to talk about Lang and Murnau...

I can exceptionally understand your feelings here and share your nostalgia even though i think we come from different perspectives. I would not have posted for the second time here if this aspect of nostalgia isn't also part of Wenders "problem". The never ending iteration of the Wenders themes are to me really boring and what was great with them in the past (you pointed out the 70s aka Neuer Deutscher Film) was only great then because of this specific point of time and history (Cold War, Go West, Hopper images, Western(S) etcetera). There is/was a certain kind of world view & desire that is over now (quite not over but changed) in my opinion. At least Wenders is trying to bring out younger filmmakers with his production company - which might be promising for the future. So even though i share certain amounts of nostalgia i also see the need to push the "new" films and directors to make the public/friends more aware of whats going on. For example when showing students a film now and then - i try not to exclude the new films because its really important for them/films and cinema in general being in scientific circulation/discussion so that they at least in qnty get the reception they deserve.

[Tommaso]

I would not have posted for the second time here if this aspect of nostalgia isn't also part of Wenders "problem". The never ending iteration of the Wenders themes are to me really boring and what was great with them in the past (you pointed out the 70s aka Neuer Deutscher Film) was only great then because of this specific point of time and history (Cold War, Go West, Hopper images, Western(S) etcetera).

I can understand your point of view completely, though for me it's the Wenders films of the late 80s and early 90s that do it for me. I don't know much about the tenets of the Neue Deutsche Film as a whole, and also wonder whether the grouping together of directors so vastly different as Herzog, Kluge, Wenders, Schlöndorff (to name the biggest names) really makes sense. It seems to me that the Wenders films from "Paris, Texas" on are really different from his earlier works, especially in their 'bigger' visual style. The specific themes he has, those of 'images' and 'seeing' and of a certain 'spirituality' (for want of a better word), are pretty personal to him and have little to do with the 70s in my view. I always found films like "Himmel über Berlin", "Notebook" and even "Until the end of the world" expressive of a certain aesthetic 'zeitgeist' with which I as a youngster then felt quite familiar and comfortable with (and still do). For me, at the time, these were films from a filmmaker who was surprisingly 'young at heart'. But Wenders has lost this inner youthfulness and is very close to becoming a boring old f. with "Palermo" by returning to these themes and a certain musical style that isn't 'young' any longer, though Wenders probably still thinks he's hip when he uses Nick Cave or Lou Reed. Films like "Land of Plenty" and "Don't come knocking", though they have problems of their own, at least felt 'grown-up' and contemporary by comparison.

So even though i share certain amounts of nostalgia i also see the need to push the "new" films and directors to make the public/friends more aware of whats going on. For example when showing students a film now and then - i try not to exclude the new films because its really important for them/films and cinema in general being in scientific circulation/discussion so that they at least in qnty get the reception they deserve.

Yes, I absolutely agree, of course. But I still can't remember many of the more commercially successful current German making any deeper impression on me. There's little that I found visually striking or inventive in German cinema in recent years; Tykwer's "Perfume" may be an exception on the visual front, but even there I had the impression that I've all seen this in similar ways before in some of the more decent Hollywood blockbusters or elsewhere. Perhaps I should really try Petzold, I hear nothing but good things about him. But his films are rarely if at all shown in the cinemas where I live (not even a small town, but it's not Berlin or Munich) or on TV, so I missed him completely. So referring back to those films that I was able to see because they were successful in the cinema or are often on TV, I couldn't help but getting in this nostalgic mood I was describing. But it's not that I want to see someone imitating 70s cinema or Weimar cinema, but I want back the spirit of daring, newness and visual style that I find for example in lots of current Asian cinema, even though I'm not always happy with the results personally. In other words: I have a nostalgia for the future.

[accatone]

I don't know much about the tenets of the Neue Deutsche Film as a whole, and also wonder whether the grouping together of directors so vastly different as Herzog, Kluge, Wenders, Schlöndorff (to name the biggest names) really makes sense.

It doesn't make sense - same with the Nouvelle Vague - however its legitimate to speak of them as a group with many fresh, original and versatile styles.

I always found films like "Himmel über Berlin", "Notebook" and even "Until the end of the world" expressive of a certain aesthetic 'zeitgeist' with which I as a youngster then felt quite familiar and comfortable with (and still do).

Yes, but what you call Zeitgeist is what i was trying to say about this particular point of time/history (70s) in the Bundesrepublik which is inseparably connected to Cold War etcetera. Wenders somehow managed to capture some of the more positive vibes of a generation that was only slowly recovering from massive political repression and ideological trench warfare. Your notion of spirituality fits quite well here. There was this desire for something else, new & open (Wenders "West(en)") - as opposed to Fassbinder who always had his eye on the past. In this situation Wenders was fresh!
Regarding new visual styles and innovations i am quite sceptical - technology wise i.e. the form, i think we have seen it all - its, like with all other arts, the alternation of aspects and focal points and of course the sociological and historical background that brings art to life and thats why the films of Christian Petzold are fresh today. He is somehow able to capture the Zeitgeist in a post Mauer Republik that founds itself in a globaliszed world looking for orientation (puhh ... really awful description of the situation - sorry).

[Tommaso]

It doesn't make sense - same with the Nouvelle Vague - however its legitimate to speak of them as a group with many fresh, original and versatile styles.

Yes, that's a very good comparison, considering how people have lumped together Godard and Rivette, for instance.

There was this desire for something else, new & open (Wenders "West(en)") - as opposed to Fassbinder who always had his eye on the past. In this situation Wenders was fresh!

That's interesting, I never thought this way about Fassbinder, but must admit I've only seen a handful of his films. Thematically the 'eye on the past' fits very well for Fassbinder, of course, but I always had the feeling that he was living more or less in his own artistic/aesthetic universe and brought something new and immediately recognizable to his films, a specific 'Fassbinder look', if you like. This specific individual 'look' of the films - and Wenders' films have a special and easily recognizable look as well - is perhaps the thing I'm missing in the current German films. And I also find that much of them don't lose a lot if you watch them on TV, and that's never a good sign... At least this last point certainly does not go for "Palermo".

So perhaps I shouldn't have spoken about newness and innovation, but rather about originality and a strong personal touch, something that makes a work immediately recognizable as the work of a specific director who doesn't neglect the images for the story he tells. Hmmm....sounds like good old auteurism and formalism... I knew I was old-fashioned. But I can't seem to help it.

He is somehow able to capture the Zeitgeist in a post Mauer Republik that founds itself in a globaliszed world looking for orientation (puhh ... really awful description of the situation - sorry).

Ahm, I don't think I could have described the situation any better.

[accatone]

Yes, that's a very good comparison, considering how people have lumped together Godard and Rivette, for instance.

Indeed - recognizable on this board as well which i always find strange because the difference between them is in my eyes enormous. I think you are on the Rivette camp - me Godard but i think we are talking about the same thing here. With Fassbinder and Wenders its probably the same and for many reasons i personally rank Fassbinder much higher than the latter (of course i am not thinking in and about "lists" here ... needless to say). Godard brought up lots of admiration, not necessarily for the films, but for the artist that Fassbinder truly was. It was his almost existential need/obsession to deconstruct and explore German history to an extend that is almost and brutally unique in cinemas history. This might be "his own artistic/aesthetic universe". To cite my favourite and highly subjective term for artistic quality, there is an incomparable density in his oeuvre that if anywhere i can only see in Bresson (i am talking about an oeuvre and not individual films here that of course show ups and downs at least to a certain extent).
Talking about auteurism or distinctive style i am with you - and even though the "new" german films i have in mind are rather personal and intimate i can at least see some artist/authors at work, maybe not revolutionising cinema, but taking a new and up to date approach to the the way they shoot the world we live in. But thats it - i am trolling your thread with off topics like this - Buona notte!

[Tommaso]

But thats it - i am trolling your thread with off topics like this

Not necessarily, as Wenders seems to be one of the few remaining true 'auteurs' in current German cinema (and it's not "my" thread anyway, even if I started it). While watching "Palermo", I constantly thought to myself: "Hell, the story - written by Wenders - isn't uninteresting at all, but the dialogues - also by Wenders - are as crude as they could possibly get; why doesn't he simply get someone on board who writes him good ones?" But a dyed-in-the-wool 'auteur' wouldn't do that, of course. Still I found myself mentally re-writing some lines, and it didn't even seem to be a very difficult task to get the banality out of them. Just some small adjustments, and the whole film would have fared much, much better.

I think you are on the Rivette camp

Indeed! But I really have nothing against Godard, though I'm not always interested in what he was/is doing. Same for Fassbinder; it's not necessarily my type of filmmaking, but it's obvious to me that his works are those of a great artist. When I talked about his own "artistic universe" I didn't have so much his obsession with and deconstruction of German history in mind, but what I would term (for want of a better word) a certain 'sleazyness' (I don't mean that pejoratively) that I find even in a film like "Welt am Draht", which only tackles specific German topics in a very oblique way. But I agree that your concept of 'density' is a very good one for tackling artistic quality, though probably not an exclusive one.

[lubitsch]

What I'm missing in successful German cinema nowadays is the inventiveness of 70s German cinema, with names like Herzog, Schilling (!) and indeed Wenders, and also the questioning and visual invention in their various approaches. In many films of that era I have a true feeling of newness, of something different at least, and all that without the pompousness of the seriousness that Wenders has in this latest film (even if not all the films by those directors or early Wenders are necessarily great).

I find it always quite strange to read about terms like inventiveness or newness in regard to films and how people desire them in films.
Film (and any art) isn't the same as computers or cars where every new generation improves the older achievements and puts them out of use. Why should it be of any interest to an evaluation if a film has new or inventive themes/stylistic traits? Following this logic, every director now is really in a bad spot with so many ways of making a film explored.
I think the only important thing is: is the movie any good? Take INGEBORG HOLM from 1913. Undisputedly the best film from 1913 but hopelessly backwards regarding the stylistic development of its time with almost every scene being played without any cuts. It doesn't hurt the film. And on the contrary there are many radical directors who pushed the style to a limit and usually lose their audience as did happen so often in the 60s and 70s.
There is a tendency among film critics and profs to emphasize film style above all in contrast to a more literary story based understanding of many earlier critics. There's further a very elitist attitude towards the mass publicum with a profound emphasis on very serious looking, artful films. And finally there's the romantic concept of the auteur director as the answer to the author of classical literature, a person to be worshipped.
All these three problematic traits more or less ran amok in these two mentioned decades when the cinema was crushed by the rising TV competition. By now the situation has changed and stabilized and the succesfull films are back again in a more mainstream surrounding which is a good thing because cinema is relevant again and not a minority affair. Germany has more home-grown films with more than a million viewers in one year than all New German cinema films had between 1965 and 1985.
Naturally some people don't see the changing times. It's absolutely incredible that Wenders film which was ridiculed in the press was selected for Cannes. How blind has one to be and how deformed by the described tendencies?
Anyway the old heave European art cinema is dying off with a few exceptions like Tarr and generally that's a good thing. Hundred years in the future it might be evaluated more critically than it is now with many critics of these decades still influential and powerful.

[Tommaso]

And on the contrary there are many radical directors who pushed the style to a limit and usually lose their audience as did happen so often in the 60s and 70s.

That's why I expressedly mentioned the names of Wenders and Herzog (and I forgot Fassbinder) who, though not necessarily being 'radical' directors in the sense of experimental cinema, nevertheless were 'inventive' in their time BUT also had a considerable commercial success. If not at the time, than in a constant aftermath since then. For me, striking invention and a huge audience are not mutually exclusive. Vincente Minnelli's musicals are the best example (and "The Band Wagon" is not even terribly story-driven).

By now the situation has changed and stabilized and the succesfull films are back again in a more mainstream surrounding which is a good thing because cinema is relevant again and not a minority affair.

I can't see any direct connection between the relevance of a film and the number of people who watch it. Both may coincide or may not. And I can assure you that my particular, subjective tastes in film have nothing to do with the possibility that they might allow me to take on a stance of 'elitism'. I'm not watching Greenaway films because I then can give myself the air of belonging to the 'selected few', but simply because I really love them (well, with two or three exceptions). But I equally love Jack Arnold's films or MGM musicals.

Thus, I'm pleading for diversity rather than for 'European art cinema instead of mainstream' or the other way round. My whole point rather was that one is dying for the sake of the other, and that was one of the reasons why I - much against myself - tried to say something in favour of "Palermo Shooting" or Wenders' approach in general. I would equally deplore it if suddenly there wasn't any sort of Hollywood entertainment anymore (although, like German cinema, Hollywood has seen better times than now).