Hamburg in the mid-1970s. Jonathan Zimmermann (Bruno Ganz) is a mild-mannered art Swiss art restoration expert and tradesman in frame-making. He is slowly dying from leukaemia, and intends to live out his days quietly and without trouble. Also in Hamburg at the same time is Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper), a mysterious American man who is apparently extremely wealthy and has made his fortune in the art trade, secretly working with a supposedly-dead painter to forge artworks and sell them for exorbitant prices. A brief meeting between the two men sets off a series of poor choices, whereby Jonathan is approached by a member of the mafia to act as a hitman, assassinating a rival gangster in cold blood – and despite being a man of morals, Jonathan would be foolish to pass up the opportunity to leave his wife and son some money after his death, as well as buying into the promise that he will receive state-of-the-art treatment for his disease should he accept. The quiet and reserved man is now suddenly a cold-blooded murderer involved heavily with the gang – and things get even more complicated when he crosses paths once again with Ripley, who becomes the titular “American friend”, the two working together in accordance with their forced allegiance to some very malicious mobsters who will just as fast turn on their allies as they will their enemies.

The American Friend (German: Der Amerikanische Freund), adapted from the novel Ripley’s Game by Patricia Highsmith is an astounding film. This film is an earlier effort from the masterful Wim Wenders, who would help define the second half of the century in arthouse cinema with some of his gorgeous films, such as Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire. Taking on Highsmith’s challenging (but oft-revisited) character of Tom Ripley, and one of the author’s most intricate books featuring the character, Wenders truly did have his work cut out for him in adapting this story – and to absolutely no surprise, he delivered a brilliant film that not only is a fascinating piece, but also a well-made, beautifully-constructed and visually dazzling story that never relents in its intention to convey the labyrinthine world created by Highsmith in the series known affectionately as “The Ripliad”. The American Friend succeeds for a number of reasons, but perhaps the one that keeps us so captivated is how this film is evenly split between the cheap but entertaining thrills of pulpy crime thrillers, and the elegant beauty of auteur-driven arthouse films, with the director finding the perfect balance between the broadly enjoyable and mentally stimulating. A riveting neo-noir that not only traverses geographical boundaries but narrative conventions as well, there’s very little reason to call this film anything less than a poignant, mesmerizing thriller in the guise of a gorgeous European social drama about ordinary people acting in unexpected ways.

Bruno Ganz was one of the finest actors to ever descend from Europe, as evident by his large body of work on both sides of the Atlantic. The American Friend was his first major role, and for those of us who mainly know him from his later work, its hardly surprising to discover that he had the same brooding intensity right from the outset of his career. Playing the genial but quiet Jonathan Zimmermann, Ganz has the grand responsibility of not only playing a complex character but carrying the entire film on his shoulders – and he certainly delivers a brilliant performance that does just this. The character is supposed to be an everyman – an ordinary individual living a peaceful existence, unfortunately, thrust into a world of malicious criminal activity, finding himself caught in a web of deception, where danger is always looming over his head. This is amongst the actor’s finest hours, with his ability to play a person almost entirely unremarkable, with the exception of his endless charm (allowing him to get along with everybody, and being almost too agreeable, hence why he finds himself in such a precarious position), and his prowess for his craft that makes him so sought after in the first place. Ganz not only had to play a character conflicted about his involvement in criminal activity but also someone who is quite openly dying, with this side of the performance being perhaps the most fascinating – The American Friend doesn’t only deal with the central crime narrative, but also on themes of mortality – and its fascinating to observe exactly how Ganz interprets this character, oscillating between deeply paranoid about his state of health, willing to do anything to extend his life as much as possible, and muted acceptance of his fate, with Ganz portraying both sides of the character’s psychological state with utterly profound sincerity and earnest simplicity, making this an oddly moving performance in an otherwise arid and bleak film.

I don’t think there will ever be a time when I fully understand Tom Ripley. This is by no means a criticism of Highsmith’s work, and far as I am concerned, she created one of the great literary characters of her day. The problem with Ripley is that he is such an enigma, he goes against nearly every conventional character trait used in fiction, both as a hero and as a villain. The most significant part of Ripley demonstrated in The American Friend is that he is a profoundly lonely man – and Hopper plays him with different shades of loneliness – sometimes he is a carefree, bachelor, gallivanting with the reckless attitude of the globe-trotting sycophant that he is, and in other instances, he is shown to possess almost heartbreaking solitude, which his own desire is to have some form of real, tangible satiation. He is able to earn vast amounts of money through his talent for evading the law and finding a way to fleece rich people into unintentionally sharing large amounts of their earnings with him. However, he also soon discovers that absolutely no amount of material wealth can ever buy him spiritual satisfaction or the happiness of a full life. All the character seems to want, aside from his immense wealth and status within the artistic elite of Europe, is a friend, which he seeks out in Jonathan, who rebuffs him constantly, perhaps being one of the few people who don’t fall for Ripley’s artificial charisma quite as easily.

Ripley is neither a hero nor a villain, but rather a character occurring between the two, a figure at the crossroads of morality, being a potent representative of human greed and corruption, as well as our inherent desire to be able to form meaningful connections with others. As the adage says, no man is an island – and not even someone as cunning and intelligent as Tom Ripley can be entirely alone, which causes him to seek out companionship – and we have to wonder if his decision to suggest Jonathan as the potential hitman was borne out of his own desire to see him in a precarious position, or because he hoped that along the way, Jonathan would be forced to take him on as a more experienced companion. Hopper portrays Ripley as a true mystery – he possesses vitriolic malice to him, but also immense empathy that makes his Ripley quite different from other interpretations of the character. He is also played in such a way that his true motives are perpetually unknown to us, which only makes him more compelling of a character. We cannot help being deeply fascinated by him and psychological machinations that make him such a strange but alluring character.

The American Friend is a potent character study about two men driven to commit crimes, but for very different reasons – one living on borrowed time is coerced into doing so through being tempted with financial security and the possibility of extending his life. The other does it purely for their own financial gain, and essentially just to satisfy the selfish craving to be able to say they succeeded. This film makes bold statements on morality and its relationship with human desire, and it is less about the crimes themselves, and more focused on exploring these characters, their interactions with their environments, with each other and most significantly, with themselves. It is a slow-burning, meticulously-paced film that sees Wenders and cinematographer Robby Müller meditating on the lives of these two characters in relation to their stark but arid environments. For this, we can give credit to Müller, who once again delivers an astonishing visual essay of gorgeous images, using the concept of these different cities as the driving point for the characters’ own existential moral crises. The cities become characters of their own, informing a lot of the film’s more subtle but intricate commentary on human greed. Both narratively and visually, The American Friend focuses on the internal challenges of these two figures, and the external manifestations of their actions. It questions the concept of morality (is Jonathan a bad man for committing murder to ensure his family is financially stable and secure after his impending death) and how “doing the right thing” means something different for each individual, with our own moral gauge being starkly different to that of others.

Ultimately, The American Friend is a very simple film, one that tells a straightforward story about human desperation and the moral quandaries faced by ordinary individuals, and the consequences of the sporadic realization of our innermost desires. Wenders opts for a more simple portrayal of Highsmith’s themes, and rather than making this a convoluted or overly-complex work, the director works to make a fascinating and incredibly riveting character study that shows the true limits of human nature in response to innate desire. This is a gloomy but beautiful film (Müller proves himself to be amongst the finest ever to photograph a film with his gorgeous and unconventional use of light, colour and depth, making nearly every shot of The American Friend as beautiful as the paintings that form one of the major plot threads), with a unique atmosphere that is as moody as it is poignant. A great pastiche to the film noir genre, revisiting some of the genre’s most iconic traits and conventions, but infusing them with a good dosage of meaningful European artistry. This makes The American Friend a gripping but emotionally-resonant film that lingers with you for a long time afterwards. Wenders takes on a difficult story, one that is primarily best described as a maelstrom of moral melancholy, turning it into a magnificent, almost intoxicating masterwork that is as thrilling as it is eloquent.