Alice in the cities

Ce film allemand est sorti sur les écrans britaniques cette année seulement. Pourtant chose n'est pas coutume, il date de 1974.

Et quel film!

L'histoire se déroule successivement aux Etats-Unis, puis en Hollande et enfin en Allemagne. Ce film au rythme lent et tourné en noir et blanc, nous fait vivre une situation extraordinaire finissant sur une ouverture inattendue et optimiste.

En dehors de l'histoire a suspens et de la remarquable performance des acteurs, ce film est marquant de part son aspect a la fois documentaire des anneés 70s conjuguées au passé et un modernisme avant-coureur.

Un film culte qui devrait faire partie de la collection de tous les cinéphiles.

Ten years before his 1984 cult masterpiece Paris, Texas Wim Wenders directed this black and white road movie, the first in a trilogy focusing on what would become familiar territory for Wenders: angst, alienation and America. New York based German hack Philip Winter (Vogler) is its protagonist: a disaffected loner suffering an acute case of writers' block. Uninspired by his surroundings and the rampant tide of commercialism, he decides to leave the States and return to Germany.

However, unforeseen circumstances at the airport lead him in an altogether different direction - towards a German woman and her daughter Alice (Rottlander), who like him, are marooned in the States until a flight becomes available. But when Alice's mother misses this flight and fails to appear in Amsterdam, Winter finds himself suddenly responsible for the young girl. Thus with a new sense of purpose, the pair set off across Europe, driving down street after street in an effort to track down Alice's Grandmother in Düsseldorf.