Alice in the Cities (1974) User Reviews (46)

A sensitive and thoughtful film

[howard.schumann · 9/10 · 16 August 2004]

Chance encounters that often seem purposeless may, upon reflection, turn out to be life changing experiences. Such is the case for German photographer Philip Winter (Rudiger Vogler) in Wim Wenders 1974 film Alice in the Cities, the first of three Wenders road pictures (Wrong Move, Kings of the Road). Traveling through the East Coast of America, Winter is overcome by lethargy and the monotony of the American landscape with its relentless vistas of billboards, chain motels, and fast food restaurants and has little interaction with his surroundings other than to take pictures as a detached observer. At one motel stop, he becomes so infuriated with commercials on television that he destroys the television set.

Blocked in his attempt to write an article describing his journey, he decides to return to Germany but finds that the flights are delayed for a day. At the airport, he strikes up a conversation with a German woman (Lisa Kreuzer) and her nine-year old daughter Alice (Yella Rottländer) also trying to return home. The three share a hotel room and things seem routine until the mother inexplicably departs, leaving a note telling Winter to bring Alice to Amsterdam where she will meet them. The mother, however, does not arrive and Winter is left to care for Alice until relatives can be located. Their relationship, at first filled with resentment, gradually develops into one of trust as they drive together in a rented car trying to locate Alice's grandmother in Wuppertal and the cities of the Ruhr.

Alice in the Cities is a sensitive and thoughtful film that suggests that everything in life has a purpose and that guidance is available if we remain open. The film mixes humor and pathos as the reluctant friends must contend with loneliness and alienation, themes often prevalent in Wenders' films. Rottländer's performance as Alice strikes just the right note. She is believable as the bright, feisty, and often charming little girl and her performance never crosses the line into sentimentality. As Winter slowly begins to see the time with her as an opportunity to embrace rather than as an obstacle to overcome, he finds that being responsible for another person can be transforming and that his quest is not so much for Alice's grandmother as for his own self.

Tender, restrained, elegiac road film about unexpected meaning...

[secondtake · 9/10 · 7 October 2012]

Alice in the Cities (1974)

If there are movies, like comedies and horror films, that are better seen in a crowd, there are some movies that might be best seen alone. This is one of them, and I didn't realize until I was almost done because it had become so absorbing I was really enjoying my isolation within the movie.

The plot is simple, and I won't say how it happens, but a nine year old Dutch-German girl is left with a German man in the United States, and he takes care of her as they search for a way to find her mother or grandmother. Their first step is to fly back to Amsterdam, and then in Germany in a little car they poke around looking for her home.

It's a road movie, though unlike any other. The two main characters are about as perfect and as natural as it gets. The man is a thoughtful, drifting writer and photographer, an artist in the counter-culture way of the times. He has no real ambition, but observes the world with poetic appreciation. So when this girl is made part of his life, he takes it in stride. That's key to the mood of the film, that this very unlikely situation can continue for so long because he just goes with the flow. There is no running to the police, no panic. But there is no sense either that this is an accepted new relationship. It's for the moment, but the end of the moment is continually deferred.

The girl goes with the flow as well, and is as brilliant as the man at being natural in front of the camera, often doing nothing. She's made to be lovable, of course, but not in any coy or sentimental way. (If this were a Hollywood film we'd all be barfing by now.) All of this matters because it isn't what's happening that really matters, but it's just being together, the two of them, and then (you realize) the three of you. You wish it was you who was doing this utterly humane, deeply felt act of traveling and being supportive and seeing modern (1973) Germany.

The filming is simple black and white but brilliantly effective, down to the heart wrenching last shot (which was probably the most expensive). The setting is actually a surprise in that you never think of the ordinary middle class and industrial parts of middle Europe being so interesting. The music comes and goes, and refers to the earthy music of the time, mostly American blues based stuff.

In a little way this reminded me of "Stranger than Paradise" and when I connected the two I saw how much Jarmusch (in that film) owed to these art film experiments just a few years earlier. And now that I think of it, this one is more touching and important even if "Stranger than Paradise" is more inventive. "Alice in the Cities" makes a case for a kind of film we don't see being made now, and which might have another vogue one of these years in reaction to the general highly refined, highly artificial worlds of most movies today. I hope so.

Odyssey.

[hitchcockthelegend · 7/10 · 10 October 2008]

German journalist Philip Winter is suffering from writers block as he travels across the East Coast of America, he instead chooses to snap Polaroids instead of writing, once satisfied that that will tell his story of American culture and landscapes he sets off to return to Germany. At the airport he meets Lisa and her nine year old daughter, Alice, getting flights home prove to be difficult and the three of them end up stopping overnight at some digs. Lisa disappears and leaves Alice in Phillip's care, thus sending the two on an odyssey as they travel together thru Europe in search of Alice's grandmother, but it's the journey that each of them take mentally that will be of most importance.

This is the first film of what is regarded as Wim Wenders loosely connected road trilogy, following on from this picture would be Falsche Bewegung in 1975 and then culminating with the quite brilliant Im Lauf der Zeit in 1976. Quite what Wenders intentions were with this picture is is not immediately clear, for certain his framing {obsession} with American culture comes to the fore from the off, both in the changing landscapes and the use of American pop and rock music. But as things progress it's the simple message of purpose that a chance encounter can have, our odd couple here are at first deeply suspicious of each other, not caring for each others company in the slightest, but as time moves on they begin to understand each other and tune into each of their respective mental waves. Life quite simply found a way thru two differing humans thrust together unwillingly, it's not deep or remotely profound, it's simple and warm in its execution, and the final (tremendous) pull away aerial shot that Wenders gives us crowns this accomplished and very enjoyable piece. 7.5/10

the spaces between self-discovery

[SteveSkafte · 10/10 · 7 July 2011]

I might have been Alice. Or was I too fearful, too cared for, too lost in myself? Was I born at the wrong time? When I watch this film, I'm reminded of a line from another of director Wim Wenders' films: "Life is in colour, but black & white is more realistic". I'm still not sure if I believe that, but there are memories that seem more a thing of light and shadow than of colour. And this is, after all, a black & white film. "Alice in the Cities" is as much about its other main character, Philip Winter, as Alice herself. Him, I have been. Lost out on the highways of New Brunswick and Maine, lonely hotel holidays all by myself with no one to comfort or to talk with. I wanted to smash that television just as he does in an early scene, but it was my only companion through the long night ahead.

"Alice in the Cities" is the first of three consecutive films by Wim Wenders about the open road, each starring Rüdiger Vogler as a similar, if not identical character. The second, "The Wrong Movement" (Falsche Bewegung) (1975), is an incredibly difficult slog of total human alienation. The third, and much better than the second film, "Kings of the Road" (Im Lauf der Zeit) (1976) is similar to this one, as Mr. Winter continues his journeys through the German countryside.

This is a film about childhood relationships - not those we have with our peers, but those of a greater age. This makes perfect sense to me, as I would without fail seek out the company of an adult over the fleeting fancies of ones closer to me. To me, anything past fully grown would blur together, all except for the very old. Philip isn't comfortable with children, just as I have become over time. It is a hallmark of those who feel that they have never outgrown their own childhood, who feel so lost inside the adult world that the past feels foreign to a present that will never fit. Their belief that living in the future is futile keeps them grounded in today, their only salvation from a life spent dreaming.

Reality is harsh in "Alice in the Cities". The release comes where life lives. The precious and precocious sensation of human interaction runs like a vein through the center of everything. This is a story suitable for anyone, not because it holds back, but because it is all in. In love with the very same world it fears, holding the hands of the same dream on whose feet it steps on. Like we all do in life. This film feels exactly like those first two or three years of your earliest memories. If you let it, you'll be taken further back than you'd have ever imagined.

A Journey from Paralysis into Light

[two-rivers · 10/10 · 21 January 2000]

A man around thirty, German journalist Philip Winters, travels alone in a rented car all over the States. He makes pictures with a Polaroid camera, which he wants to include in a story that he has to write for a publishing house. But the results of his photographic efforts do not correspond with what he believed to see when he took the pictures. And he does not even dare to assimilate his impressions into a written form. It seems, as if he keeps seeing nothing but the void, either the uniform monotony of always recurring urban landscapes on his lonely journeys or, in the single rooms of the motels, a television program that constantly reels off the same dull and dreary patterns. And how can you put emptiness into words?

A silenced bewilderment has already become routine in the completely paralyzed life of a man, who only pities himself, and who apparently has lost all access to his fellow men. Therefore the girlfriend in New York, to whom he wants to unburden all his world-weariness can do nothing for him but show him the door, saying: "Nobody told me how to live either."

So he forgot how to live, our very typical hero of modern times. But just as in a children's story rescue suddenly appears in the shape of a wondrous fairy, Philip Winters also has a surprising encounter, which will help him to determine his position in this world anew. The unexpected enlightening figure is a child, nine-year-old Alice. Her mother, whose acquaintance Philip had somehow forcibly made at the airport counter, has let her down, leaving behind a succinct message, in which she asks Winters to take provisionally charge of the girl until she will follow them to Amsterdam in a later airplane.

The mother does not appear though, and thus Philip Winters does not have any other alternative but to go on looking after the child, a responsibility he most willingly would like to avoid. But Alice remains persistent, she scents the possibility of an exciting adventure. She mentions a grandmother, who possibly lives in Wuppertal, West Germany. Unwillingly Winters bows to his fate, but after a few abortive attempts he simply deposits her at a police station and goes to a Chuck Berry concert on his own.

That could be the end of the story. But as I already mentioned, Alice is a fairy. And so she does not only come back, but also actually succeeds in getting a mechanism going in Philip Winters which seemed to be already dead and buried: the reference to the other one, the preparedness to get involved with his fellow creatures. At the end of the film he seems to be recovered, the train in which he and Alice are sitting, is obviously moving along on newly built tracks, the decisive switching of the points has been made.

At least for the time being. For it is exactly in this hopeful and promising moment that we have to leave this wonderful movie. We are just allowed to throw another brief glance at the protagonist, who is sitting in the compartment joyfully united with Alice, a moment before the camera steps back and rises into the air, moving irresistibly away from the scene, until it depicts a vast panoramic view. But our eyes are still fixed on the train that hastens steadily through the immense landscape heading towards a destiny unknown.

a charming film, Paper Moon fans might enjoy

[daydreamblvr1210 · 8/10 · 12 August 2004]

This is easily one of Wenders' most accessible films of the 70s (along with the American Friend, 1976). Alice in den Stätden was originally released in the states after Paper Moon (Ryan, Tatum O'Neal) premiered and bears a slight resemblance to the story. In the case of Alice, this little girl gets stuck with a reluctant photojournalist and together they cross Germany in search of her grandmother's house. It differs from Wenders' other road movies in that it's plot line actually has some element of suspense to keep the momentum forward.

It's very entertaining for the charm of the characters, especially Yella Rottländer as Alice. She shines here as a very self-possessed, precocious youngster who disrupts the life of the familiar, detached, angst-ridden protagonist, Philip (Rudiger Volger).

There are small details captured in this film that are noteworthy to fans as well as casual viewers. The old organ at Shea Stadium (long since removed) is briefly shown in one early scene . The monorail in Wüppertal is featured in another sequence (one of the first monorails built). There is a lot of urban decay documented in their travels, particularly in the Ruhr district scenes but all of that can't detract from the humor of the 2 lead characters' playful interactions. The shot of Philip and Alice mimicking each other doing calisthenics offsets all the dreariness and alienation in one scene. The optimistic ending is a very satisfying one. This is a beautiful gem of a film if you can find it.

Motherboard for a film genre

[karmaswimswami · 8/10 · 11 January 2015]

What's not to like about this early Wim Wenders road-genre film? It's an operatic overture in which he sets out the themes, the provenance, the pacing we will see again in again...in "Goalie," in "Paris, Texas," even in "Wings of Desire." The atmospherics are perfect, and I could watch a 40-hour miniseries in this vein. The final 35mm print is bogged down now and again in graininess from blow-ups of the original 16mm negative, but the characters are flesh and blood, credible, and well- played. Alice's interaction with the protagonist's guiding male penumbra is nuanced, relieving, and something a post-modern film could never achieve. The older I get the more I cherish and cling to Wenders' early work: more worldly than you think, and a zero-tolerance zone for cynicism.

Alice in the Cities

[random_avenger · 7/10 · 20 November 2010]

Besides the acclaimed and popular later works like Paris, Texas (1984) and Wings of Desire (1987), Wim Wenders is also known for his Road Movie Trilogy, a string of three films that came out in consecutive years in the 1970s. Alice in the Cities, the first movie in the trilogy, was released in 1974, while the other two are The Wrong Move (1975) and Kings of the Road (1976).

Alice in the Cities marks the first appearance of the director's recurring character Philip Winter (Rüdiger Vogler) who would later reappear in several other Wenders titles. This time he is a journalist and photographer who has been assigned to travel around in the United States and write a story about his experiences but suffers from a bad case of writer's block. Just before returning to his native Germany he meets a German woman called Lisa (Lisa Kreuzer) and her young daughter Alice (Yella Rottländer) who are also planning to return home. Soon Philip finds himself as Alice's temporary custodian and takes her on a long road trip through Germany in order to find her grandmother whose whereabouts seem to be more or less unknown.

Many stories have been made about men learning something new about themselves upon suddenly becoming responsible for a child. The premise can easily be made into a cheesy inspirational family movie, but luckily Alice in the Cities takes a more ambitious, or perhaps ambiguous, route. There are only three significant characters in the story: Philip appears to enjoy living and working alone but gets fairly well along with the young Alice who has also been thrown into the situation against her will but is able to maintain a positive attitude most of the time. The third important figure in the film is Alice's mother Lisa who remains rather enigmatic and does not reveal much about her motives. Philip and Alice do quietly evolve as persons over the course of the story; how exactly, the audience must figure out by themselves.

Visually the movie looks fine. The grainy black and white cinematography is guaranteed Robby Müller quality and the melancholic score is provided by the legendary German krautrock band Can. Numerous shots are filmed through car windows as Philip drives through American or German towns by himself or with Alice, so admirers of urban environments can get a neat first-hand view of a traveler. I especially liked the scenes on or near the suspended monorail in Wuppertal, Germany. Loud TV programs playing in various television sets are also a recurring theme and a source of frustration for Philip, whereas Alice seems to enjoy them more.

There are some things I'm not sure I like, such as the slightly excessive runtime or the frequent fades to black that make many scenes feel a tad rushed, but in the end I enjoyed the movie as a whole. Rüdiger Vogler does a good job as the quiet Philip and Yella Rottländer never comes across as unnatural or annoying in the role of Alice. Alienation, parenthood and traveling are themes that have wide appeal and whilst "the journey is more important than the destination" may not be a wildly original conclusion, it always makes a fitting overhanging theme for a road movie. In addition, Alice in the Cities features a strong thematic connection to Paris, Texas and is recommended viewing to fans of said movie and traveling films in general.

Wenders: In His Prime

[frankenbenz · 8/10 · 6 December 2008]

http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com/

Between the years 1971 and 1977, Wim Wenders could do no wrong. Yet, even with his best films already on the screen, mainstream success eluded him until 1984, when his over- romanticized Paris, Texas (a fanboy-esquire ode to John Ford and the American landscape) established him as one of Cannes' most beloved filmmakers. Perhaps as a result of commercial success coming from his sappiest work to date, Wenders' chased a tangent that spiraled into career insignificance after 1993's Faraway, So Close! By the mid-late 90's, Wenders' films (documentaries excluded) became achingly pretentious and ripe for parody.

Back in his prime, 1974's Alice in the Cities / Alice in den Städten foreshadowed the near perfection to come in 1976's Kings of the Road / Im Lauf der Zeit. Overshadowed by KOTR, AITC has been overlooked, yet despite its smaller scale, budget and running time, it addresses many of the same themes common to Wenders' best films. The most prevalent of these recurring themes is: der angst (translated: Fear). All of Wenders characters are driven by a fate defined by either Kierkegaard and/or Heidegger's notion of what fear is. Wenders' Angst is the German equivalent of what Existentialism was to the French New Wave, powerful philosophical themes that would ultimately shape the direction of their respective cinematic movements.

If asked to recommend a series of films every fan of cinema should see, I wouldn't hesitate to suggest the films Wenders made between 71-77 (in addition to 1982's The State of Things / Der Stand der Dinge). In my mind these films are meditative, visually hypnotic and poignant essays that speak volumes on the human condition and of film-making itself. These films have inspired me tremendously and if you're a fan of Jim Jarmusch, discovering these films will feel like uncovering a hidden cache of his films. Jarmusch owes a great debt to Wenders both as an inspiration but also as a donor, since it was the short ends from State of Things that enabled Jarmusch to make his exceptional second feature Stranger Than Paradise. If you haven't already seen these films, make the effort...you will be happy you did: The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick /Alice in the Cities / Wrong Move / Kings of the Road / The American Friend.

Through the Eyes

[spoilsbury_toast_girl · 12 September 2007]

The references between Wenders' films and cinema in general are utterly diverse. They reach from direct hints and citations to more subliminal connections. And therefore, mainly the early films of De Sica resonate in Alice in the Cities, especially the neo-realistic masterpiece Ladri di biciclette. In the main protagonists' (journalist Philip and young girl Alice) search for her grandmother in the German Ruhrpott, we can see traces of the father's and his son's search for the bicycle in Rome. Both films are open for sidelong glances, for moments that don't want to give in the dramaturgic concept of the story. But, actually, you don't have to watch De Sica's film to lose yourself in the sheer beauty and poetry of Alice in the Cities, where documentary elements win over fiction and found pictures triumph over staged ones; when shots of moments fall out of the stream of images and reveal an almost boundless yearning.

cute kid

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 21 March 2019]

German writer Philip Winter is driving across America taking Polaroids. He arrives in New York City. It's been four weeks and he has failed his writing assignment about the American landscape. The repetitive empty ugly experience has not inspired him. He's short of cash and there is a strike back in Germany. He's forced to buy a ticket to Amsterdam. He helps out Lisa who speaks no english and her young daughter Alice. After spending the night with Lisa, she abandons Alice with him.

The moment this movie got me is Lisa complaining about Philip to her mother. I really like her relationship to him. I would have wanted more drama in the story. It tells a leisurely road trip despite the circumstances. It is a bit long. It's fine as a ninety minute trip. Alice is a good little performer. Philip's ennui leaves the car in second gear. The search for the grandparents is Kafkaesque. It just needs to be shorter.

Delightful, fresh, natural, but could you make it today?

[robert-temple-1 · 9/10 · 22 July 2008]

I have just seen this wonderful film by Wim Wenders again after many years, and it has all the charm that I remembered. It is about the friendship between a grown man and a little girl aged eleven (whose mother has 'dumped' her on him). These days, no one would dare to make such a film because children and grown-ups no longer have friendships. This film may well have been inspired by the earlier 'Sundays and Cybele' (1962), a brilliant film on the same theme by the talented French director Serge Bourgoignon, who has mysteriously not made a film since 1969, despite winning the 1963 Oscar for Best Foreign Film with 'Cybele'. Imagine an Oscar being given today to a film about such a taboo subject! Children are now locked up in the house by their neurotic mothers and not allowed to play on their lawns, they are just as tightly under siege from the danger of adults as we all are in the process of being from the danger of 'terrorism'. In fact, the present consensus is that all adults are terrorists from the child's point of view. Best never to meet any! Professor Neil Postman, a brilliant social psychologist and cultural critic whom I knew slightly (he died in 2003) analysed what is going on as long ago as 1982 when he brought out his shocking book 'The Disappearance of Childhood'. In it, he pointed out that the concept of 'childhood' as we have traditionally known it until recent years was a creation of the Renaissance, and that prior to that, children were just little people who had not yet learned very much. If one reads Postman's book carefully, and considers what is really going on at the deepest psychological levels today, the powerful guilt feelings which adults now have are clearly the motive force behind the psychopathic mania now raging in the English-speaking world about paedophilia. Add to this the false memory syndrome where unscrupulous 'therapists' are convincing huge numbers of women and girls that they have been raped as children, usually by their fathers (when they haven't), and you have a real mixture! Of course, any logical outside observer of human society would point out that we now live in a society which perversely and insistently attempts to sexualise children. Fortunes are made by greedy corporations in marketing sexually suggestive clothes and even pole-dancing kits (!!) to little girls. The role models of these little girls are allowed by their idiot parents to be pop singers who are sex-addicts, cocaine-addicts, everything a little girl should NOT want to become. The media are the evil collaborators in this sexualisation of children because it sells ads, and also because many media folk are frankly extremely perverted. All of this means that films like this one by Wim Wenders are now of archaeological interest, bearing witness to a past civilisation, before little girls were encouraged to dress and behave in public like mini-prostitutes and jiggle up and down with their 'pole-dancing kits', or to think that the word 'sexy is the highest form of praise that exists for a child. Yes, childhood has largely disappeared, and it will probably never return. But then, with childhood went sensible parenthood as well, and the Collapse of Western Civilisation is nowhere more conclusively demonstrated than by the vanishing of those two institutions.

Young Yella

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 22 March 2016]

"Alice in den Städten" or "Alice in the Cities" is a German film from over 40 years ago and by many it is considered Wim Wenders' finest work as a writer and director. The movie runs for slightly under 110 minutes and stars Yella Rottländer and Rüdiger Vogler, a pair of actors that has also worked with Wenders on several other occasions. The movie here is in black-and-white and you could probably call it a more distinguished road movie. For the majority of the film, we watch a grown-up man in charge of a little girl he encountered very randomly and the two go eat stuff like ice cream, go swimming, but also try to find the girls' parents to get her back where she belongs.

This film is not really one that delivers in terms of tension or story. It is very much worth seeing for the atmospheric take Wenders takes here. This is quite an unusual couple and it is interesting to see them interact throughout the entire 108 minutes. There is no grit here, no real tension at all, but this film is evidence that a movie does not necessarily need it if it elaborates in a convincing manner on its protagonist and this one here sure does. It also helps that Rottländer and Vogler have pretty great chemistry. I quite enjoyed the watch. I also think this one may be a good pick to start your journey if you plan on getting a bit into Wim Wenders' filmography. Thumbs up.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[theognis-80821 · 4/10 · 24 November 2021]

A German travel writer in America gets to New York, having taken pictures instead of writing, whereupon some woman abruptly leaves her pretty, nine year old daughter in his care and disappears. He returns to Germany and looks for the child's grandmother. Slow, dull, undramatic, so it must be "art."

a nostrum for wanderlust cineastes

[lasttimeisaw · 8/10 · 25 July 2016]

Wim Wenders' fourth feature, ALICE IS THE CITIES heralds a seminal change in his career, the first film of his road film trilogy (follows by WRONG MOVE 1975 and KING OF THE ROAD 1976, all three are starring Rüdiger Vogler), which designates Wenders's definitively poetic and nihilistic trait in his future feature film-making, and would reach its apex in Paris, Texas (1984) and WINGS OF DESIRE (1987).

Philip Winter (Vogler), a German journalist drives in rural America like a lone wolf, takes pictures from his Polaroid camera, checks in dingy motel rooms, chafes at soul-destroying TV shows and radio programs remitting their diet of pap non-stop, where is his destination? Soon after, Philip arrives in New York, audience then has been informed that he has been assigned to write an article about the United States four weeks ago, but he has been struck by writer's block and is unable to produce any texts, except for a stack of Polaroid snapshots. Running out of money, Philip decides to go back to West Germany with a one-way ticket, in the booking counter, he chances upon a German woman Lisa (Kreuzer, Wenders' second wife) and her 10-year-old daughter Alice (Rottländer), Lisa also wants to leave for Germany as soon as possible but is hampered by language barrier.

Being a Good Samaritan, Philip book three tickets to Amsterdam the next afternoon (being the nearest flight possible), finds the mother-daughter a hotel room to stay, where he soon joins them after being rejected by his New York friend Angela (Köchl, Wenders' first wife) to stay overnight, who acerbically pinpoints Philip's problem: he takes pictures to reproduce what he sees, but forever discombobulated by the inutility of the transmutation, he can feel no attachment to the world.

Lisa confesses to Philip that she has just undergone a breakup and invites Philip to sleep in the same bed with the proviso that sex is off the table, the next day, Lisa leaves Alice in Philip's care and fails to take the flight with them, but gives her word that she will meet them in Amsterdam the next day, a promise which she will also ultimately break. From then on, Philip is unwillingly saddled with an odd travel companion, Alice, an unadulterated force of childish simplicity and bluntness, from New York, to Amsterdam, then to West Germany, where they try to locate the house of Alice's grandmother, whose name eludes the ten-year-older. From public transportation to roaming together in a rented car, in hotels or bedding down at a stranger's home, the mismatched pair forms a tactile but uncharacteristic bond. The entire film strikes one as disarmingly detached, even in the narrative-wise turning points, e.g. Alice runs off from the police station and reunites with Philip, or Alice admits that she has been lying about where her grandmother lives in the first place, Wenders refuses to leave any traces of emotional manipulation, as a reward for dedicative audience, these scenes stamp an indelible mark for incorporating authenticity into acting.

Meanwhile, Philip starts to scribble on his notes with thoughts pouring in during his journey with Alice, although at first he deems her as a nuisance and a liability, but there is no denying that Alice's presence does bring a whiff of freshness in his negative disposition and passive existence, it forces him to move about, to make up his mind, to communicate and to reconnect with the world which he seems to forfeit, and in return, he insouciantly bears with a surrogate father figure, makes ascertain Alice will return to her mother in safe hands.

As a dialogue-sparse existential essay, ALICE IN THE CITIES has an amazingly meditative and minimal soundtrack cooked up by the krautrock band CAN, although the Black-and-White standard is rudimentarily grainy and sometimes looks grotty, it suffices to say, just as the fact that there is no negative for Polaroid, Wenders' body of work is also a brand of his own uniqueness, imitated by future directors but can never be superseded - as a nostrum for wanderlust cineastes,

a critique of noise

[Eyeblood · 25 November 1998]

pay attention to the sounds in this film. philip cannot stand the sound of america--the tv, the radio, the noise of the city. upon arrival in europe he falls asleep to the soothing noise of classical music.

my favorite statement, which i take to be about the age old notion of "paradis amerika," is when alice and philip play hangman in the plane. The word used is traum. alice says only things that really exist can be used as words for this game. paradis amerika cannot kill you, because it doesn't exist.

a wonderful film.

i give it three riders of the apocalypse.

Gentle and beautiful

[gbill-74877 · 8/10 · 24 April 2019]

Highlights:

• Beautiful cinematography. Very artistic, and had me seeing everyday images (e.g. out car windows) in a different way.

• Touching, unaffected performances from Rüdiger Vogler and Yella Rottländer, the 9-year-old girl he is improbably left in custody of.

• There is something existential about the wanderings of the main character, first across America while trying to write a story, followed by searching for the girl's grandmother, and indeed, he's in a pretty absurd situation.

• This line: "The inhuman thing about American TV is not so much that they hack everything up with commercials, though that's bad enough, but in the end all programs become commercials. Commercials for the status quo. Every image radiates the same disgusting and nauseated message. A kind of boastful contempt. Not one image leaves you in peace, they all want something from you."

• The suspension railway in Wuppertal, Germany.

• Strong, unforced ending. In general, there is such a pleasant gentleness to this film, even though it's touching on longing and loneliness.

• Wim Wenders was clearly influential - in tone, this film felt a lot like Jim Jarmusch's 'Stranger Than Paradise', which would appear a decade later.

'Beautifully Slow'

[manendra-lodhi · 8/10 · 1 February 2013]

The film tells a story of a writer (Winter) who hasn't met a deadline and decides to go to his native. On the airport he meets a woman with a girl child named Alice. Things got messed up a little and Winter is made to take the girl with him. The film's main theme starts from here. What we experience from now on is how reluctance turns into a slow and progressive affection.

The way the story started gave varied thoughts about its progression but it helps when you are deceived even a little in terms of expectations. Entire film is slow no doubt but this slow is different from what I experienced elsewhere. The characters and even the whole environment seem to be having a purposeless atmosphere. In a way all seemed to be sad in some way or the other. The cinematography heavily uses still frames which further induce slowness. There are unnecessary fades almost after every scene which becomes irritating after some time. For around 40 minutes of the film there doesn't seem to be much happening in the film and with little dialogs there is not a clue what is being shown. But after that the story starts to pick pace and that too slowly but noticeable. The way the interaction and the emotional development between Alice and Winter started, it failed to arouse proper feelings. However in the end you notice a very sweet buildup of feelings amongst the two happening at last. In the end for around 15 minutes I was completely blown with the acting of the casts and situations.

A major theme that is explored in the film is 'waiting' and how one's reluctance turns slowly into bondage. The conversion is definitely slow but is worth a watch for film fanatics.

MESSAGE: 'There is always a purpose in life.'

VERDICT: 'A recommended watch.'

An early masterpiece.

[MOscarbradley · 10/10 · 13 February 2019]

All of Wim Wenders' preoccupations were already on display in his early masterpiece "Alice in the Cities"; the road, travel, America, (and American music), alienation, angst. The 'story' is simplicity itself; a German photo-journalist, on an assignment in America, and one which he fails to complete, finds himself saddled with 9 year old Alice after meeting her and her mother as they try to book tickets back to Germany. When the mother abandons the child with him he seems to readily accept the responsibility of looking after her. He is something of a lost soul and in the child, Alice, perhaps he sees a mirror image of himself.

Today the premiss may seem somewhat unlikely yet it fits perfectly into Wenders' skewed vision of the world. He shot in monochrome, (Robby Muller was again DoP), giving it the feel of a documentary and as our hero, Rudiger Vogler is superbly naturalistic as is Yella Rottlander as Alice. They make a great, unsentimental team; the film may owe a debt to American cinema but it's without any of the sickly sentimentality you usually find in American films dealing with 'lost' children. Indeed, everything that happens seems remarkably matter-of-fact but this is a picture of life, not as it's lived, but as Wenders imagines it should be lived; it's both abstract and humanist and it remains one of the finest of all German films.

Searching for meaning in familiar tropes after the landscape has abandoned you

[Polaris_DiB · 7/10 · 4 February 2009]

Phillip Winter travels to America and finds an empty, desolate wasteland of signifiers and empty advertising, neon signs and empty beaches. He takes pictures but cannot write, and he compares the pictures he takes to reality and seems to find them uncomplimentary. In this aggrieved, meaningless state, he runs across a mother and daughter, the daughter's name Alice, similarly stuck in America without purpose. The mother sends Alice with Phil back to Europe, and seemingly abandons her. It is up to Phil to return Alice to her family, setting the stage for a good road-trip movie.

At least, that is what the movie would lead you to believe, provided the peculiar structure of the opening scenes haven't already unsettled you. Actually, little Alice pulls off something of an area effect enchantment, seducing both Phil and the audience into her own profoundly selfish judgment of the world because neither have anything else to work off of. Just as Phil absurdly listens to Alice's incomplete memories of her grandparents', we take comfort in the familiar disenchanted elder redeemed by innocent youth narrative. And, in a crafty move from Wenders, just as Phil recognizes the absurdities of his own actions but goes along with them anyway, always beneath the flattened imagery of this movie is the knowledge that the signifiers have been removed from the narrative and that eventually the journey will go nowhere. Why do we watch the movie, then? Precisely why Phillip Winters follows Alice across Europe: because it's preferable than submitting to the nothingness.

This would be the first Wim Wenders movie I've seen, and as such fills a giant gap in my cinematic experience. I am eager to move on to more. He is quite clearly a talented director.

--PolarisDiB

AN EXERCISE IN RESTRAINT...!

[masonfisk · 10/10 · 18 April 2019]

An early triumph from Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire/Buena Vista Social Club) from 1974. A photojournalist on assignment in the States has wrapped up his gig but his editor gives him an earful for having the pics (Polaroids specifically which were probably new for the time) but no story to go w/them. Deciding to regroup creatively back home in Germany, he runs into a woman & her young daughter on their way back to Amsterdam ( the woman is on the outs from the girl's father) so they all decide to return home together but for some unseen reason, the mother decides another stab at her relationship & our hero is stuck for the bulk of the film transporting his new young charge back home via train, plane & rental car to deposit her at her grandmother's. Shot in glorious black & white by the late, great Robby Muller, this quirky travelogue feels like the most feel good film Wenders ever produced w/the great use of dissolves to punch the momentum of the scenes as each episode unfolds. Never falling into a chasm of saccharine sweetness or out & out pathos, this pragmatic adventure rests on the shoulders of the 2 leads who perform great wonders w/little effort.

A film about rootlessness and finding your place

[Robert_Woodward · 7/10 · 25 March 2008]

This 1974 Wim Wenders film shot in black and white has recently been screening in a re-mastered version. The film portrays the chance meeting between a man suffering writer's block and a girl who has been abandoned by her mother. The story of their becoming lumbered with one another unfolds slowly and the meticulous detail with which their journey out of America and through Europe is portrayed is impressively realistic but at times exhausting.

For me the early sections of the film set in America are the most engaging. Many of the scenes are very short in length, fading to black almost as soon as the first images flash up on screen (and mirroring the Polaroid photography of the travelling writer). Much of the dialogue is curt and to the point. This overall approach is integral to communicating one of the key themes of the film, which is of the rootlessness and alienation of the travelling writer, overwhelmed by the world around him and unable to find expression.

When the film moves out of America and into Europe the pace of the film slows considerably, reflecting the writer's gradual journey home and towards a gradual rediscovery of happiness. I found the tale to be truly heart-warming whilst steering well clear of sentimentality. However, the slowing pace coupled with the director's relentless charting of every little detail in the duo's journey made the second half of the film decidedly less engaging than the first. Nevertheless, the uplifting ending features a truly spectacular aerial shot and leaves the story poised in a satisfying place.

this is only the second time that I've ever heard German spoken in a Wim Wenders movie

[lee_eisenberg · 10/10 · 4 October 2019]

Wim Wenders was one of the leaders of New German Cinema in the 1970s (along with Werner Herzog and Rainer Werner Fassbinder), revitalizing the country's film industry. Among his notable works since then are "Paris, Texas" and "Buena Vista Social Club" (in my opinion, his all-time best is "Until the End of the World"). One of his early efforts was 1974's "Alice in den Städten", about a writer forced to become the guardian of a girl. It was the first entry in Wenders's Road Trilogy. The movie addresses topics such as the assault on our lives by nonstop commercialism. Apparently, Wenders saw "Paper Moon" right before he began production and was concerned that this movie would be too similar, but noted director Sam Fuller convinced to press on with it. All in all, the result was one fine piece of work. The black-and-white cinematography really gives a feeling of bleakness and desolation (fitting for the plot).

As for the first time that I heard German in a Wenders movie, that was "The American Friend".

Trying hard to say something, without ever saying it

[JamesHitchcock · 6/10 · 24 August 2022]

A couple of reviewers compare this film to "Paper Moon", which came out the year before, and I can understand why. Both films are shot in black-and-white, something which was becoming increasingly unusual in the 1970s. Both can be seen as road movies, and both revolve around a young man, probably in his thirties, travelling with a young girl.

The man in "Alice in the Cities" is Philip Winter, a German writer who has been commissioned to write an article about the United States. He hasn't managed to produce anything: he hates the country and is suffering from writer's block. Eventually, his publisher loses patience and sacks him. While booking his return flight, he meets a woman, Lisa van Dam, and her young daughter, Alice, who are also trying to get back to Germany but are having difficulties because of a strike by German airport staff. They arrange to fly to Amsterdam and then travel on to Germany overland, but along the way Lisa (who seems to be an irresponsible hippie type) goes missing, leaving Philip responsible for Alice. He decides to reunite her with her grandmother in Germany, but Alice can't remember the address, or even the city her grandmother lives in, but thinks it might be Wuppertal. Thus begins a road trip across Europe in search of granny; the title (in the original "Alice in den Städten") refers to the many cities through which Alice and Philip pass.

The film has two other similarities with "Paper Moon". One is that both films have a brilliant performance from the young female lead. Tatum O'Neal won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, making her the youngest ever winner of a competitive Oscar. Yella Rottländer was never going to match that achievement, but only because the Academy are not in the habit of handing out Oscars for performances in German arthouse movies. Yella's Alice, infuriating but irresistible, is every bit as adorable as Tatum's Addie. She dominates the film, although there is also a good contribution from Rüdiger Vogler as Philip. The other similarity is striking use of black-and-white photography, of the flat, featureless American prairies in "Paper Moon" and of the gritty industrial cities of West Germany here.

In 2008, Philip French, the film critic of The Observer, described "Alice in the Cities" as a film which could not be made today, "partly because of the invention of the mobile phone, partly because of our obsessive fear of anything that might be interpreted as paedophilia". I fear that he is right; there are some films from the seventies, most notoriously Louis Malle's "Pretty Baby", which I feel should not be made today because of their blasé attitude to underage sex, but only the most obsessive Puritans would see anything sexual about the relationship between Philip and Alice. Fears of paedophilia might also mean that even "Paper Moon" could not be remade today unless it were to be made clear that Moses is Addie's real father, something left ambiguous in the original.

I wouldn't rate the film as highly as "Paper Moon", one of the great comedies of the seventies and part of the American tradition of road movies which tell you something about the country and its people. "Alice in the Cities" isn't really a comedy, although there are amusing aspects to the Alice/Philip relationship. Although it is a relatively short film it is also slow-moving, with that typical arthouse feature of several long scenes without dialogue in which nothing seems to happen. It has ambitions to be a serious film, with something serious to say, although I was never sure exactly what. Wim Wenders seemed to be trying hard to say something, without ever actually saying it. The film is, however, still worth watching for its highly atmospheric photography and Rottländer's stellar performance. 6/10.

Great road movie

[alansabljakovic-39044 · 8/10 · 26 May 2020]

Wim Wenders' first movie in his road trilogy is incredible piece of art, the way he captured different cities is really astonishing. The story is pretty simple but the journey is incredible. This films contains a lot of different themes, the most interesting to me is the commentary on television and advertising which is still relevant today more than ever... It feels a lot like Paris, Texas so if you love that one definitely check this one too.