Huzzah to Lionsgate for releasing this quality DVD of Lisbon Story, a quirky Wim Wenders film that I feared would never become available in a decent release. Wenders followed his extremely successful Wings of Desire with an expensive dream project that unfortunately was a box office failure, Until the End of the World. After trying a sequel to Wings, Faraway So Close!, Wenders concocted this very small-scale effort in Lisbon. Perhaps the result of connections made while filming Until, which used Lisbon as a location, Lisbon Story highlights the Portuguese band Madredeus and features the return of Rüdiger Vogler, one of Until's more lovable actors. Until the End of the World was structured around its terrific soundtrack; Lisbon Story's performance aspect points the way to Wenders' later Buena Vista Social Club, a full-on documentary about the fading of Cuban music under the U.S. embargo.

The movie pays off with more verbal debate about moviemaking, which seems unsatisfying no matter how clever the presentation. Friedrich Monroe is making a movie with an ancient hand-cranked camera, and Winters is enchanted by the hand-made B&W images. ¹ When he finally finds the director, (Spoiler) Winter discovers that he's abandoned the film project. Instead, Monroe is furtively recording hours of Hi-8 video with hidden cameras, or a camera strapped to his back. Monroe's idea is to remove himself from the cinematic equation and record random reality without directing anything. Winter has seen some of the kids running around with tiny Hi-8 cameras doing this, apparently on Monroe's instructions.

(spoiler) Winter has been reading Monroe's poetry books while soaking up the local atmosphere. Like a filmic Sam Spade, he tells the director off in no uncertain terms. All of this crummy video nonsense, with the ugly electronic images and Monroe's onanistic intellectual rationalizations, is a lot of rubbish. Monroe is an excellent visual artist and to deny that to his films is as foolish as hiding out like a criminal. ²

Footnotes:

1. The ancient camera looks suspiciously like the one used to film 1995's Lumière et compagnie, the filmic celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the movie camera. Wenders offered his own contribution to this multi-director effort.
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2. Because he's captured by the instant gratification of the small video recording device, Monroe can also be construed as suffering from the same 'disease of images' that affects the dream addicts of Until the End of the World. His desire to 'remove himself' from the cinematic equation smacks of the kind of questionable experimentation see in Lars von Trier's recent The Boss of It All.
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