The long career of German director Wim Wenders has, for the most part, been made up of variations on the theme of an outsider trying to make sense of a new land or culture.
In Wenders’ many features and documentaries, that idea usually manifests in, or is projected upon, one figure: a goalie acclimating to a pair of unfamiliar cities, an angel patiently seeking to understand the fears and hopes of various Berliners, a European filmmaker stumbling through the streets of Los Angeles in search of his producer, or an American musician navigating the often-insular world of Cuban culture.
That’s undoubtedly why many of his films—and the majority of the features being screened at a Wenders retrospective that begins at the NW Film Center this Friday—are road movies. It’s the perfect rubric with which to send the characters into unknown territories.