Kings of the Road

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Audience Member This is a truly great road movie from Wim Wenders who directed two of my favourite films, "Paris, Texas" and "Wings of Desire". The film follows a projectionist who is traveling across Germany showing films, and he picks up a traveling companion along the way. They chat along the way and have impactful life moments on the trip. The black & white film looks gorgeous in this recent 4k restoration print. The look of the film is inspired by the works of photographer Walker Evans. This films is definitely worth seeking out in my opinion! Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member The most remarkable thing about Kings of the Road is that even though the movie runs a VERY slow three-hours, and even though the plot is effectively aimless, and even though we witness Rudiger Vogler, the hero of Wim Wenders previous two movies in the Road Trilogy, taking a big ol' dump on screen, it plays like a legitimate masterpiece. It's Wenders anchoring his stylistic and tonal touchstones and completing his metamorphoses into a legit cinematic force. It's no mean feat making a three hour movie where nothing happens, and where the characters barely talk about themselves, and to have that film turn out as compelling as this one. This is Wenders' genius. He gets you with amazing cinematography and very specific tone that arises from the small adventures of the film's protagonists. Kings of the Road feels like an amalgamation of the two films that come before it in the quasi-trilogy. It features the same wandering quality as Alice in the Cities, but feels less like an ode to French New Wave and takes the camera out of the streets and into the wide open road. The shots here are some of the most beautiful you will ever see. Kings of the Road has a lot of philosophical underpinnings, and where those were overblown in Wrong Move, they feel woven into the fabrice of Kings of the Road and serve as a supplement rather than the main course. It feels a bit like a Bergman film, but more natural. I still can't figure out how Wenders made this so captivating. It should be boring, and a lot of folks probably think it's boring as hell, but I was transfixed. It's so strange watching a film this calm, this willing to take its time. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/12/23 Full Review Audience Member A road trip made with the most sensitive eye and ear. My first viewing years ago blew me away by its grasp of life and the give-and-take relationship between man and machine. My second viewing confirms a love for life and film that is lost in the people it portrays. Loving masterpiece. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Audience Member http://filmreviewsnsuch.blogspot.com/2016/05/kings-of-road.html Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Audience Member Riveting from beginning to end - all 3 hours of it - no matter how leisurely the pace may (occasionally) be or how much the plot may meander. Wenders' stunning sequence of mid-to-late '70s films is one of the best dud-free runs in celluloid history, & Kings Of The Road is probably the best of the lot. Derek Malcolm claimed it "achieves a palpable sense of time, place & atmosphere, & of how everybody is affected by their tiny spot in history" - a near-perfect summation. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Audience Member Wim Wenders' King of the Road is a wonderful so called Road movie which in contrast to most other road movies actually feels like a real road trip, with all kinds of episodes for good and for worse. And it's also a great view of the Americanized West-Germany which have lost it's own identity. As one of the main characters says: "The Americans have colonized our subconscious". We follow the mobile film projector repairman, Bruno (Rüdiger Vogler) who on his trip pick up a hitchhiker, Robert (Hanns Zischler) who have left his wife and child and decided to just run away. So he joins Bruno in his work and they become full time companions and they becomes friends and trawell trough every corner of West Germany, fixing projector and visiting old places from their earlier life. Kings of the Road is a playful film that takes it's time and don't rushes. All boring small talk, all the quiet moments, and even unnecessary toilet breaks when Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Kings of the Road

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