This is a film about restoring contact and identity with the world. The main body of the story is very simple. The reporter Winter traveled across the United States to write a book about the United States, but when he returned to New York, he could not write any words. I filmed it all with Polaroid, and read it over and over again. In the end, Winter planned to go back to Germany, but just in time for the workers’ strike, there was no way to go back, so I met a mother and daughter at the airport (Alice and her mother) who were planning to go back to Germany. After booking a flight to Amsterdam, my mother left Alice to Winter in order to comfort her boyfriend, and her mother did not rush to Amsterdam to pick up Alice, so Winter took Alice on a journey to find her grandmother...
However, the main body of the story has never been the focus of Wenders' films. Winter rediscovered an identity of himself through his contact with Alice and returning to his hometown. He finally accepted that the scene where he brought Alice back to the Ruhr area was to find himself. Very well represented. Alice is not the protagonist, but it is the point where Winter can return to himself again, which becomes the name of the film. It happened that I just watched Wenders' documentary before. Wenders himself liked this film the most. I think it was because he went to the United States soon, he lost his self-determination and injected himself into the master's kilometer. He was interviewed. Shi also said that the United States has been a big change for him in the past, and this change is of course also included in his films. "Alice in the City" should be his first feature film after he went to the United States. He was very confused when he was studying film. He said that he could not find his own unique style and direction. The style has gradually become clear. The subsequent "King of the Road" and "Broken Road" are the continuation of this film, and the protagonist gradually matures, also starring Rüdiger Vogler, whom Wenders calls his confidant. Wenders' re-confusion about the movie appeared when he was shooting "Lisbon Story", and everyone could see that the director there was his own representative. The films after that were different from the earlier ones.
Winter said to his girlfriend, "When I waited for the photo to develop. I felt the same unease, I couldn't wait to compare the photo with the real scene. But even that didn't give me peace of mind because the photo caught up with the real thing, and Overwhelm it." For him, Polaroid is his visual tool for the world, it is not real enough, because it is not what his eyes see, and he understands the errors when he accepts them, but he can't integrate them. This made me think of myself, is the camera in my hand also a tool? Just because I can't get my self-identity, so I take what I photographed as what I saw and ignore the truth?
I do get confused when the photo and the real have different identities, and I haven't redefined myself like Winter or Wenders.
Also, if you look closely, at the beginning, when Winter was on his way to New York, in a cafe, Wenders himself appeared by the jukebox. He once said that rock music maintained part of his sense of self-identity, and he went to America's favorite after that is the jukebox.
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