“Taking pictures is a way of proving things. Waiting for the image to develop, I was often filled with a strange unease. I could hardly wait to compare the picture with reality. But comparing them wouldn’t reassure me either. As the still images were always overtaken by reality“

Reality is one of the most pivotal concepts in Wim Wenders’ extraordinary road movie, Alice in the Cities (German: Alice in den Städten), a quiet and poetic character drama about two unlikely friends meandering around various cities in the hopes of finding someone, when in actuality they are searching for themselves, and some sense of metaphysical satiation that they determine will complete them in some way. Exploration of reality has tended to be the German auteur’s speciality – almost all of his films feature an individual in intentional isolation, looking at the world after being caught between reality and constructions. Alice in the Cities may not have the scope of Paris, Texas nor the audacity of Wings of Desire, but it has every bit of heart, and it would be almost unheard of to watch the manifestation of his empathetic vision and not be moved. Alice in the Cities is the kind of film that tends to make one’s heart sing, and their spirits soar – it is a beautiful celebration of life, and while it may be extremely measured and sometimes borders on focusing solely on the banal, it is a gorgeous and fascinating voyage into the human condition, where Wenders employs his distinctive tendency towards genuine sympathy in looking at the metaphysical journeys of two people who turn out to be a lot more similar than they would have originally thought.

Wenders’ films always tend to focus on one individual who relishes in their solitude but still secretly yearns for some affection and recognition from a world they don’t seem to quite understand. In Alice in the Cities, we are introduced to Philip (Rüdiger Vogler), a German writer who has been commissioned to write a piece about the landscapes of America, which entailed him going on a journey across the country, where he encounters a variety of individuals and stories that would be otherwise fulfilling had Philip not been preoccupied with his own voyage of self-discovery. Over the course of the trip, he doesn’t write a word, rather taking a series of Polaroid photographs, which chronicle his journey, which is meaningful, but is redundant when his publishers demand he meets the deadline. On his way back to Germany, he encounters a woman named Lisa (Lisa Kreuzer), and her nine-year-old daughter, Alice (Yella Rottländer). Philip’s clear paternal instincts and Lisa’s recklessness mean that Alice is very soon abandoned by her mother, who entrusts her daughter into the care of Philip while she tries to resolve a toxic relationship. What should’ve been a quick journey escorting the young girl home eventually turns into a much more arduous quest for Alice’s grandmother, where Philip has nothing to go on other than a photograph and the faded memories of a girl who has been forced to live a less-than-ideal life. Set across continents, as Philip and his new friend meander through the USA, The Netherlands and eventually into the German countryside, the film follows their burgeoning friendship, and the beautiful connection these two unexpected cohorts start to find occurring between them.

Throughout all of his films, Wenders employs some very basic concepts, which is most evident in his earlier films, which always make use of the same set of existential quandaries, and while they may share some common themes, they all differ in how they are intended to form a broad tapestry of modern existence. For this reason alone, Wenders remains one of the most thoughtful filmmakers of his time, someone who attempted to impossible on innumerable occasions – he endeavoured to capture the human condition, both its joys and tragedies and to represent them in ways that are meaningful without being excessive. Alice in the Cities is the first of his Road Trilogy, which sees the director taking on two main concepts that would otherwise be amiss in a less insightful film, but feel perfectly natural. The first is that of the detachment of reality, where we are presented with a protagonist who feels extremely alienated from the rest of the world, who is almost tragically human but cannot seem to understand the societies around him. The second is the theme of wanderlust – all of Wenders’ characters are in some sort of motion, whether physically, mentally or emotionally, everyone is on their own journey, moving towards a certain (meta)physical destination that may not even exist, but does in their own mind. Along the way, chance encounters help these often abstract concepts move along, taking them closer to (and on occasion, deviating from) their ideal version of reality. Through the most gorgeously hopeful nihilism in the history of cinema, Wenders gives us an uplifting and intricate tale of a set of existential voyages that much like Philip’s journey, don’t have any particular destination in mind – what does that matter when its the journey itself that means the most?

A chance encounter forms the basis of Alice in the Cities, with the character of Philip encountering the titular Alice. Unlike some of the director’s more notable works, this film is a two-hander, and in exploring the story of two different but connected characters, Wenders is able to derive two extraordinary performances from his leads. Everything that succeeds in this pair of performances relies on duality, and how their interactions result in effective conflict between the two. Just consider the downbeat, cynical nature of Philip, who struggles to find beauty in anything around him, and how it contrasts with Alice, whose disposition is inherently optimistic and hopeful that a better day is on the horizon. Some may credit this to the fact that she’s a child, but when you look at how the performances work together, you understand that this is not the archetypal story of a young person going from innocence to experience through associating with someone who apparently has more wisdom, and thus imparts their knowledge in a way that helps the younger person grow. If anything, it is Alice herself that teaches Philip about life – she reminds him of the joy that comes from looking at the world through the innocent eyes of a child, which causes his corrupted attitude towards the world to slowly but surely erode until he himself starts relishing in the excitement of once again encountering the recklessly beautiful naivete of childhood.

In this regard, Rüdiger Vogler and Yella Rottländer give really terrific performances in Alice in the Cities. Neither of them errs towards excess – there isn’t enough narrative space in an early Wenders film to facilitate ostentatiousness. One of the film’s most notable merits is that between the two, it is difficult to pinpoint which performance was better, and given the choice, it would be nearly impossible to decide who actually gave the more impressive portrayal, as they are so symbiotic. Vogler’s quiet and contemplative nihilism works extremely well across from Rottländer’s childlike optimism, which creates a unique dynamic that is far more than just the “odd couple” trope, but rather a reciprocal series of beautiful moments between two individuals separated not only by generation but by their general outlooks on life. Despite both being relative newcomers, they portray these characters with such earnest conviction, and find a common ground upon which to base their brilliant chemistry, which lends the film its powerful sense of realism, as the idea that Philip is somehow becoming a paternal figure to a girl he has only known for a matter of days flourishes even more as a result of the convincing leads, who possess the rare characteristic of being able to occupy even the most inconsequential alcoves of these characters.

It isn’t surprising that Alice in the Cities features some exceptional character work – that is essentially part and parcel for Wenders, whose attention seems to be equally split between the broad modernist view of the world, and the individual characters that occupy it. Alice in the Cities is mainly a portrayal of a journey of self-discovery, with a couple of characters going in search of reality, the same one that Philip mentions he is failing to capture in the quote at the outset of this review. He soon learns that reality is very difficult to actually capture, mainly because it is so intangible, and impossible to record in any natural way – how can we ever hope to have a photograph or piece of writing capture the raw emotional vulnerability that comes with existence? I’ve often spoken about how much we should appreciate filmmakers who make the proverbial “city films”, which serve to be love-letters to the hometown of the filmmakers. Wenders’ films use a similar concept, albeit from a very different direction – there is always a sense of dislocation, mainly because the main characters are normally outsiders, who experience a sense of unbelonging. This creates a detached sensation, whereby the story isn’t built on the memory of a particular place, but rather the memories of being in flux, feeling out of place, that plays a role in building and refining an individual. Neither Philip nor Alice rely on their pasts to move forward – in fact, their origins are kept relatively ambigious for the purpose of portraying how ordinary they actually are. Yet, they understand that the present moment, wherever they find themselves at the time, play a pivotal role in propelling them forward – neither of them knows where they want to go, but they know they need to find some sense of belonging, perhaps not to a particular place, but rather to something deeper, if they ever hope to reach this vague destination, whether abstract or concrete.

Alice in the Cities is a film that celebrates the allure of the open road, both the physical ones that the two characters perpetually find themselves on, and the more abstract ones, those that remain within the mind, and are just as winding and difficult to navigate. They are on a journey towards self-realization, and Wenders’ remarkable sensitivity in representing these characters is unprecedented, and the precise reason why he remains one of the most extraordinary directors when it comes to the subject of creating memorable and realistic characters, which are always infused with the director’s distinctive compassion and empathy. This film is genuinely moving – I implore anyone to watch the final scene of this film, experiencing the unbridled joy and extraordinary melancholy that comes in a moment of catharsis, and not feel something profoundly meaningful. It is a film brimming with emotional resonance, but it is never cheapened through unnecessary sentimentality or saccharine manipulation – Wenders respects both his work and the audience far too much to demonstrate such disregard to the process of portraying life as it is. Every moment in Alice in the Cities, whether heavyhearted or exuberant, is executed with such natural precision and clear authenticity. I’m always awestruck by Wenders’ inextinguishable humanity, and the affinity he shows with ordinary folk is astounding, and which is why he is most certainly one of the most unheralded social commentators of his generation.

Alice in the Cities is a metaphysical odyssey that crosses continents and psychological boundaries, which is just about as audacious as a film like this can hope to be. By the end of the film, both Alice and Philip have failed to reach their destination – or at least the destination they thought they were headed to. Yet, they do seem to have arrived somewhere far more important, having found the sense of belonging that they had always felt to be just out of reach, which they spent all their time pursuing without any success. Wenders presents us with a tender adventure through the various avenues of the human spirit, told through the shifting perspective of two individual who initially clash over their differences in personality, but soon find themselves converging over their shared desire to seek out some version of the truth, and the feeling of fitting into a world they did not understand at first, but is slowly starting to reveal itself to be far less impenetrable than it would appear to our protagonists. We have all undoubtedly encountered the adage “home is where the heart is”, and as demonstrated here, home for Philip and Alice seems to be absolutely anywhere, whether the bustling streets of New York City, the quiet canals of Amsterdam, or the tranquil country roads of working-class Germany. Alice in the Cities is a gorgeously understated film that thrives on a certain intangible elegance in its simplicity, and relishes in its astonishing visual and narrative beauty, which tells a resonant story that never defaults to excess or manipulation, and remains sweetly sentimental and extraordinary resonant in its portrayal of a quest to self-actualization. Ultimately, it begs the question: who cares about the destination if its the journey that really counts?