Rendez-vous à Palerme

I just saw the movie in International Film Festival of Durrës, eager as I was for another Wim Wenders experience. And I left the theater with mixed feelings. Images were so good, bur the story was so cheap. The apology of Death at the end of the movie was awful, as if written by a 15 years scholar. So was the dialogue with the shepherd. Cheap and cliché ideas about death and life. The presence in the story of G. Mezzogiorno was senseless and not justified at all. The story of a photographer that takes a shoot of Death, is not bad, whatsoever. But it surely didn't to be treated as in child books, with death coming towards you and moralizing about life and death. And above all, the pregnant Milla, pretending deeper art in VIP Photo shooting, gave a sense of pity. No worth seeing it twice.

Just to make sure to do justice, and that I had not misses something, I watched Palermo shooting twice before sharing how disappointing this mess of a film is.

Wenders has been going downhill, and severely for a couple of decades. Stick to his works of genius from the 1970's and 80's. Another reviewers said Wenders is "increasingly misunderstood."

That is the the problem. the problem is Wenders is increasing in a repetitive and hermetic bubble of his own making. See his most recent nonsense and ridiculously hagiographic portrait of Pope Francis to see the full decline.

image - still and moving - digital - film - panorama - window - painting. how is the world described in photographic/image capture? who sees? framing. who is seeing? what is seen? what is shown? dreams. i am a camera. this is maybe an over extension of the metaphor, but clearly states the idea of the seer seeing. audience. and the seer showing. story through experience, not always linear or real. and always - great views of the city. great mix of language & languages. vision. so much feeling, showing and not telling. faces, moments, real, unreal... "I watch it for a little while = I love to watch things on TV" this was interesting to see in las vegas, of all the places in the world.

I can't add much to hpark5's fine comments (though I'd encourage him or her to make use of paragraph breaks) so I won't attempt a full review of Palermo Shooting. I will mention, however, that when I saw the film at the Berlin and Beyond Film Festival in San Francisco, it was received enthusiastically by an audience of over a thousand people in a packed theater.

Wim Wenders was present and answered questions after the film. The things he said were exceptionally thoughtful and responsive. Although his work may be uneven because of his willingness to take risks, I thought Palermo Shooting a major success. Wender's integration of the death theme with Palermo's ancient and decaying physical environment was especially impressive.

To me, the crucial moment of the film occurs when Finn, the photographer, asks Death what he can do for him. Death says that no one has asked him this before and that the only thing that he can do is to live well for the rest of his life.

A big-budget feature film version of a mixtape: the conceit of letting the audience hear what the protagonist's personal playlist sounds like in their head when they wear their earbuds was executed very well by the seemingly arbitrary song selection to juxtapose with the action. It never felt like a "music video" yet this film has the look and all the trappings. I've been a fan of Wim Wenders for a long time but I somehow missed this one on its first release. The dream sequences are quite unique and effective; this film is Wenders as a cinema stylist. The film has an advertising gloss with the kind of patchwork of collage. I had no expectations coming into the film but I knew that I wasn't in the mood for anything intense. I got want I wanted. It's a visually stunning but understated trip-to-Italy film and I felt like I discovered a hidden gem. A must for any fan of Lou Reed; a decade later perhaps it's time to re-watch Palermo Shooting.