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Kings of the Road
One of the finest achievements of New German Cinema, Wenders' remarkable road-movie follows two young men as they travel through a country in the midst of momentous change.
Road movie 1976 169 mins
Director: Wim Wenders
Overview
One of the finest achievements of New German Cinema, Wenders' remarkable road-movie follows two young men as they travel through a country in the midst of momentous change. After driving his car at high speed off a road and into a river, losing all his worldly possessions, Robert hitches a ride with Bruno, who travels across Germany's hinterland repairing projectors in run-down cinemas. Along the way, the two men meet people who exist on the fringes, and as part of the fabric, of German society. In attempting to reconcile their past, the two men find themselves increasingly at odds with each other.
Both a meditation on the passing of the age of great cinema and an acute study of life in post-war Germany, Kings of the Road remains one of Wenders' most enduring accomplishments. And its stunning monochrome images – at once pleasingly matter-of-fact, memorably lyrical and event, occasionally, reminiscent, in their gentle melancholy of the films of John Ford – are by the late, very great Robby Müller.
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