KINGS OF THE ROAD IS WENDERS’ MOST EXTENSIVE EXPLORATION OF THE VARIOUS CONCERNS THAT PREOCCUPIED HIM IN THE 1970s.
Male friendship and questions of communication and identity are examined here with rare compassion and gentle humour as the director combines an openended road movie format with an admirably precise visual style. Wenders’ contemplative approach doesn’t make for a traditional male buddy movie. His characters are those familiar outsiders who seem crippled by some failure of communication. Bruno (Rudiger Vogler) is a lonely cinema repair man who travels along the border with East Germany, and his travelling companion Robert (Hanns Zischler) is escaping from a broken marriage. The two men strike up a friendship and their journey becomes in a sense a journey into the past as they reflect on their lives and take time out to return to their respective homes. If some sense of self is restored by these acts, their respective cultural conundrums remain. Bruno feels he is tending to a worn-out German cinema industry, while Robert dithers, hoping for signs of new life.