Back in the 80s, german director Wim Wenders (of the generation of the Neues Deutsches Kino) made a series of films that would mark his career: “Paris, Texas” (1984), “Wings of Desire” (1987), and the one we’ll be talking about today, “The State of Things” (1982). In what is probably his most meta-reflexive film (though I haven’t seen all of them), Wenders dissects the filmmaking process and the implications that it has on the lives of those involved. “The State of Things” premiered at the 39th Venice Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion and received plenty of acclaim.

The movie concerns a film crew based in Portugal as they try to shoot a science fiction flick. Unfortunately for them, they soon run out of film stock and money and are unable to complete the project. The director (Patrick Bauchau) asks his crew to stay put and be ready to resume shooting at a moment’s notice, for he’s gonna fly to L.A. to try to find their producer (Allen Garfield) , who’s been missing for some time now. The crew stays back and we get to see their interactions, intelectual musings and emotions. As things progress and the director tracks the producer down, it becomes clear that he has more than a few secrets that could turn dangerous.

As stated before, the film is very self-reflexive – “who makes black-and-white movies today?!” exclaims a character within a black-and-white movie. The setting of the story in a film set allows Wenders to explore the dynamics that go beyond what we see on screen, those areas we seldom get to see or even acknowledge when we see a movie. As filming needs to be stopped, the crew members start interacting much closer with each other, slowly becoming a kind of dysfunctional family, something that perhaps doesn’t happen that often on film sets; we get to see and experience the humanity of characters that are usually taken for granted by the viewers. And as the plot begins to unravel and we understand what has been actually going on, the tension goes into a crescendo that explodes in a finale that we couldn’t have seen coming.

The cinematography is simply beautiful. Shot in breathtaking black-and-white footage, images of portugues coasts, more intimate scenes dimly lit but with extraordinary interplay between light and shadows, it is all very visually striking. There seems to be an emphasis on this light-dark/black-white dichotomy, since its mentioned a couple of times by different characters in very different situations. Beyond the cinematography , the actors are also deserving of praise. Bauchau is great as the calmed and solemn Friedrich, but, just as the screenwriter Denny (Paul Getty III) tells him, we can appreciate that there’s much more going on within. Also great is Isabelle Weingarten, who was married to Wim Wenders at the time, as the actress Anna; it is easy to see that she was a source of inspiration for Wenders. But probably the standout performer is Samuel Fuller as Joe, the old cameraman: even with limited screen time we as viewers can see his character’s experience and struggles.

If I have one complaint about this film it would be its final 15-20 minutes, or to put it in more traditional terms, its final act (it is hard to categorize this film within the three or five act structure, it does seem to operate somewhat freely along those lines, something more common in european art films). While the act itself keeps you interested and the conclusion does wrap up the central conflict, even if it comes quite unexpectedly, my problem with it is that it focuses its entire attention on the director’s and the producer’s story, without once going back to Portugal and to the supporting characters. Somehow it feels as if they were forgotten, their arcs unfinished and ultimately superfluous. And especially after the final scene more questions araise regarding their fates. And while I don’t need that every blank gets filled, I do get the feeling that their stories were pushed to the side in favour of the main one – and those stories and characters were some of the film’s strongest parts.

Wim Wender’s “The State of Things” is a movie about movies, about filmmaking, about those involved and about the consequences decisions can have, both for the process itself and well beyond that. Beautifully shot, boasting great talent from its cast, and achieving important levels of self-reflexion, it isn’t hard to see why it won the biggest prize at the Venice Film Festival that year. Without question one of the standout films in Wenders career and an important entry in the canon of the New German Cinema, I recommend this film to anyone who has a serious interest in cinema, both from an appreciator’s and a filmmaker’s perspective.

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