Wrong Move
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Wrong Move
1975. West Germany. Directed by Wim Wenders. Screenplay by Peter Handke, Wim Wenders, based on Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. With Rüdiger Vogler, Hanna Schygulla, Marianne Hoppe, Nastassja Kinski, Hans Christian Blech. In this stylish and unsparing adaptation of Goethe’s classic bildungsroman, an aspiring writer leaves the comforts of his hometown for the capital in Bonn. Along the way, he encounters a motley crew of fellow travelers—a beguiling actress, a hack poet, an ex-Nazi, a mute teenage juggler (Kinski, in her screen debut)—who together journey across West Germany, from the Caspar David Friedrich landscapes of its countryside to the cold topographies of its rebuilt cities. Yet as the title implies, every move is a false one: by film’s end the young protagonist, no closer to self-discovery, instead must grapple with the horrors of the recent past and contend with the impossibility of reconciling artistic imperatives with larger responsibilities. “If only politics and poetry could be united,” Wilhelm wonders. “That,” one of his companions replies, “would mean the end of longing, and the end of the world.” In German; English subtitles. 103 min.