My Favorite Closing Shots: Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas

Faraway, So Close!

The final post in my look at Faraway, So Close! at Nostalgia Kinky.



Wim Wenders’ follow-up feature to his legendary Wings of Desire is simultaneously one of his most flawed productions and most resonate. Gone is the moody perfection that inhabited so much of his early career, and in its place in Faraway, So Close! is a sprawling over-ambitiousness that is as beautiful as it is frustrating and as poignant as it is flawed.



Of the three films Nastassja Kinski made with Wim Wenders, Faraway, So Close! is the weakest and yet there is something profound and right about it. Faraway, So Close! is a overtly spiritual work that has moments that rank along with the best of Wenders, but it’s hard to deny that the film falters in ways that Wenders work hadn’t before it. It’s a film that finds the great German director transitioning from one of the shining lights of the art house world into one of the most fractured.



Wings of Desire was a phenomenal success for Wenders and is arguably the pinnacle of his career. A near unanimous critical smash that is often featured along with Scorsese’s Raging Bull as the best film of the eighties, Wings of Desire was one of the oddest choices for a film to make a sequel to so Faraway, So Close! automatically had a lot going against it.



One of the most anticipated films at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival and one of the most controversial, Wenders Faraway, So Close! split audience and critical reaction more than any of his films prior had. Even the admires (and there is a lot to admire abut the film) were more muted than usual and its critics were much more vicious.



The film, written by Wenders with Richard Reitinger and Ulrich Zieger, like Wings of Desire centers on a group of Angels in Berlin looking over the people in the city. Also, like Wings of Desire, it features cameos from real life figures including everyone from Lou Reed to Peter Falk to most astonishingly Mikhail Gorbachev.



The positives from Wender’s sprawling film are easy to note. A incredibly beautiful looking mostly black and white production shot by legendary DP Jurgen Jurges, Faraway, So Close! is at the very least one of the most striking looking films from the early nineties. The acclaimed soundtrack, featuring a beautiful score by Laurent Petitgand and songs by the likes of Reed, U2 and Simon Bonney has also held up very well. This is also clearly one of the most personal projects Wenders ever mounted and its clear-headed spirituality is downright touching. There’s nothing ironic about Wender’s work here and its good-heartedness and good-will make it one of the most spiritually resonate works in all of modern cinema.



Unfortunately the negatives are just as easy to spot. Overlong and sloppy, the film never finds a consistent tone and for the first time in his career Wenders seems downright confused by the film he is making. Part political commentary about the reunification of Germany that had happened after Wings of Desire and part Spiritual confirmation, Faraway, So Close! marks a surprisingly unbalanced period for Wenders, one that unfortunately he has still not fully recovered from.



Despite the films many faults, its virtues finally outweigh them. The cast is extraordinary with special mention going to German actors Otto Sander and Bruno Ganz. The American actors in the film, including Falk and Willem Dafoe, are also quite splendid in their smaller roles. If the film does finally feel a bit bloated due to the cameos, Lou Reed does reverberate nicely specifically in a chill inducing moment when he plays his “Berlin” in his hotel room.



Nastassja is really fine in her role as the good hearted angel Raphaela and it remains one of her most resoundingly tender roles. There is something special in the collaboration between Kinski and Wenders and that comes out here, even though one wishes more time would have been spent on her character rather than the irritatingly silly action subplots that film becomes occupied with in its last forth.



Faraway, So Close! surprisingly won the Grand Prize at the 93 Cannes festival but the disappointment many people felt with it was palatable, and by the time it reached Britain and the States the sharp backlash was in full force. The soundtrack ended up being a much bigger success than the film did, and after a brief theatrical run it was relegated to a poor full frame VHS that destroyed the film’s stately compositions. Most English speaking countries would have to wait nearly ten years to see a decent copy of the film but thankfully the Widescreen DVD of it is quite nice, and it even contains a commentary by Wenders where he manages to highlight the films many virtues and faults.

My Blueberry Nights

Recently down in Memphis I stopped in at the fabulous Arcade Restaurant, an always tantalizing spot known as the oldest still operating restaurant in the city. Many films have shot scenes there, including Jim Jarmusch's stunning Mystery Train and the equally enthralling 21 Grams. The particular booth we sat at on this visit had a pic of Rachel Weisz hanging above it, and I was reminded I had yet to sit down and watch My Blueberry Nights from acclaimed director Wong Kar-Wai that had been shot partially at the Arcade.
I rectified that a couple of nights ago with a viewing of the American DVD of the much maligned film that was indeed shot in Memphis, as well as New York and out West. I mention that it was the American DVD because I am aware that the film went under some heavy cutting from the version that first premiered at Cannes. Whether the additional footage would help or hurt the film I can’t say, and the DVD unfortunately doesn’t offer any of the missing footage as a supplement.
My time with My Blueberry Nights was odd to say the least. First of all the film is really stunning looking…I would actually go so far as to say that it is among the most visually striking productions of the decade. It is also clearly a Wong Kar-Wai movie, as his shooting and editing style is so identifiable, even to someone like me who has unfortunately only seen a couple of films.
As I said my time with the film was strange though, as I can’t remember a production in recent memory that beguiled me so much while watching it but then slipped away from me so quickly. The film is very much like a particularly good piece of Blueberry Pie, but unfortunately a good piece of pie needs some sort of compliment and My Blueberry Nights finally doesn’t offer one. There is something positively vacant about this stunning looking film from one of the key auteurs in modern cinema.
Many people have pointed to star Norah Jones as the heart of the film’s problem, due to her inexperience as an actor. I actually didn’t have any problems with Jones, who I found perfectly suitable as the film’s mysterious and deliberately undefined main character. Does her inexperience come across? Absolutely, but it’s easy to see why Wai built his film around her…or more specifically her face, which is one of the most charismatic and memorable of the decade.
Nor did I have any problem with the rest of the film's impressive cast, which includes a slew of Oscar winners and nominees including Rachel Weisz and David Stathairn in the Memphis section, Natalie Portman in the Western part and a scraggly looking Jude Law in the New York scenes. I found Weisz and Stathairn particularly good in the film, and one particular moment between Rachel and Norah outside of the Arcade restaurant at night being quite devastating.
The real problem with the film lies in its script by Wai (his first English language attempt) and novelist Lawrence Block. The script never rises above feeling like a trio of short stories cobbled together in an attempt to make a whole and the film can’t really recover from it, no matter how delightful looking it is. I was actually reminded as I was watching it of any number of flawed Wim Wenders productions from the past decade in just how simultaneously rewarding and frustrating it is….and of course the fact that this is very much a Wenders type road movie.
A couple of days after seeing My Blueberry Nights I must admit that my initial feelings of grudging admiration have diminished. There is something finally just unsatisfying about it…pity as it is such a gorgeous work made my an obvious master.



Despite my misgivings about the film, I don’t think it’s the disaster so many critics made it out to be. It has moments of undeniable power and I will revisit it again in the future. There is one sequence in particular involving Law and a surprisingly solid and sublime Chan Marshall (from Cat Power) that almost made me forgive the film all of its failings. It’s a raw moment that exposes the hurt of failed relationships and lost dreams in a truly powerful way. I wish the rest of the film could have possessed the kind of emotion Wai found with with Law and Marshall in this moment…as it is though My Blueberry Nights is just a bit too slight. For another recent look at the film, check out J.D.'s fair and well written look at Radiator Heaven, where he has some different problems than with the film than I did, but he felt the strong Wenders vibe as well.