In the White City

Audience Reviews

View All (7) audience reviews

Audience Member Ever been a tourist and thought of just staying where you are? This moody and reflective movie by Swiss director Alain Tanner captures this feeling for us all enticingly. The film has not had the showings it conspicuously deserves. It draws us in to contemplate what might happen if we simply stopped doing what we've always just done? And the haunting sense of authenticity is heightened using cuts of super-8 movie clips (as representations of a filmic mimicry of the pulse, taste and feel of life as it is lived on the edge). Bruno Ganz (long before his Hitler portrayal) simply gets of the boat on which he was an engineer and loses himself and us in the sounds and sights of a foreign land. Lisbon evocatively unfurls before us in realistically plausible super-8 snatches as Ganz's character becomes enveloped in the flavour and mystery of a poor quarter of the city. Hopelessly drunk and plaintively playing his harmonica through the minutes and hours spent in his hotel room commanded by its dripping tap, the character posts film home to his wife in clinical Switzerland. Time and place are punctuated by escapes into drink, romance whilst the character clutches at every moment's freshness and tracing the lines of a web of ordinariness which is so easy to experience voyeuristically.The clock in the hotel symbolically goes backwards. Maybe there are times when perhaps we need to go back in order to move forward. This haunting film Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/09/23 Full Review Audience Member Just as I was looking at the complete list of all the Bruno Ganz movies on his Flixster profile it was no surprise that it was missing this movie title. And with no one having reviewed this yet in addition to the profile missing out the description of plot summary I think I'll make it very specific. Directed by Alain Tanner, In The White City is a haunting, bluesy mood-piece that tells of a disconnected sailor who jumps ship in Lisbon. Paul drifts through the streets of the ghostly "white city" with a movie camera in hand, filming himself and recording his unstructured search for something real. It was at the local bar when his spirit was unleashed by meeting the feisty, beautiful Rosa. I happened to have discovered this movie recently and only saw it 'cause Ganz is my favorite foreign actor at the moment, and when I saw him here he was really good in his acting performance. Beautifully photographed, In The White City is a well made film that, although hard to find, can be recommendable for the foreign film fan. (The dialogue is spoken in Portuguese, French, German, and English with English subtitles at the bottom of the screen.) Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/03/23 Full Review Audience Member Just as I was looking at the complete list of all the Bruno Ganz movies on his Flixster profile it was no surprise that it was missing this movie title. And with no one having reviewed this yet in addition to the profile missing out the description of plot summary I think I'll make it very specific. Directed by Alain Tanner, <i>In The White City</i> is a haunting, bluesy mood-piece that tells of a disconnected sailor who jumps ship in Lisbon. Paul drifts through the streets of the ghostly "white city" with a movie camera in hand, filming himself and recording his unstructured search for something real. It was at the local bar when his spirit was unleashed by meeting the feisty, beautiful Rosa. I happened to have discovered this movie recently and only saw it 'cause Ganz is my favorite foreign actor at the moment, and when I saw him here he was really good in his acting performance. Beautifully photographed, <i>In The White City</i> is a well made film that, although hard to find, can be recommendable for the foreign film fan. (The dialogue is spoken in Portuguese, French, German, and English with English subtitles at the bottom of the screen.) Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Audience Member A solidão e a cidade. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Audience Member Somewhere between Antonioni and Wenders. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member lemme have a ganz type for life Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/09/23 Full Review Read all reviews

In the White City

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW