Lisbon Story Reviews

An eloquent love letter to the cinema from German director Wim Wenders. Rudiger Vogler stars as Phillip Winter (a character he's also played in Wenders' ALICE IN THE CITIES, UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD and FAR AWAY, SO CLOSE), a Frankfurt sound engineer who's summoned to Lisbon by a mysteriously urgent postcard from his director friend Friedrich Monroe. Phillip hops in his car, but by the time he arrives, Friedrich is nowhere to be found. His apartment is empty, save for an old hand-cranked camera, an editing table and several cans of film containing silent footage of the city that Friedrich has shot with his archaic camera. Phillip goes in search of his friend, taking along his sound equipment and capturing the sounds of Lisbon in order to provide Friedrich's film with a soundtrack. What begins as an engaging mystery soon evolves into a simply stated yet fascinating discourse on the nature of cinema itself. That's no big surprise: Wenders has long been interested in the logic of images and questions of representation. What is unusual here is the breadth of affection Wenders allows himself to express toward the medium he so clearly loves. Sure, there's plenty to fret about -- movies have lost the innocence of their early days, and their images may well have become irredeemably corrupt -- but they can still be a lot of fun. Wenders poignantly asserts that after all is said and done, cinema will remain a celluloid reliquary into which a filmmaker can put a small piece of his heart.