LOOSELY BASED ON GOETHE’S WILHELM MEISTER, THIS IS A DISCURSIVE MODERN BILDUNGSROMAN WRITTEN BY THE AVANT-GARDE AUSTRIAN NOVELIST AND PLAYWRIGHT PETER HANDKE, WHO ALSO COLLABORATED WITH WENDERS ON THE GOALKEEPER’S FEAR OF THE PENALTY AND WINGS OF DESIRE.
Wenders’ favourite actor of the time, Rudiger Vogler, plays Wilhelm, who travels through modern Germany, encountering history (a former Nazi), economics (an industrialist) and passion (Nastassja Kinski, whistling the ‘Ode to Joy’). This, however, is not the age of enlightenment, and experience proves an unreliable tutor. Wilhelm may learn little but, as always, he observes a great deal. As Chris Petit has observed, ‘Wrong Movement is an interesting film of perambulations, posings, ruminations and dream tatters, taking its cue from Handke’s strange talent for combining extreme myopia with a selective focus that amounts to a different way of looking at the world. When he is on song, Wenders’ films move very easily, and Wrong Movement, though different in substance, has many parallels with The American Friend in its atmosphere of fretful unease.’