A couple of reviewers compare this film to "Paper Moon", which came out the year before, and I can understand why. Both films are shot in black-and-white, something which was becoming increasingly unusual in the 1970s. Both can be seen as road movies, and both revolve around a young man, probably in his thirties, travelling with a young girl.
The man in "Alice in the Cities" is Philip Winter, a German writer who has been commissioned to write an article about the United States. He hasn't managed to produce anything: he hates the country and is suffering from writer's block. Eventually, his publisher loses patience and sacks him. While booking his return flight, he meets a woman, Lisa van Dam, and her young daughter, Alice, who are also trying to get back to Germany but are having difficulties because of a strike by German airport staff. They arrange to fly to Amsterdam and then travel on to Germany overland, but along the way Lisa (who seems to be an irresponsible hippie type) goes missing, leaving Philip responsible for Alice. He decides to reunite her with her grandmother in Germany, but Alice can't remember the address, or even the city her grandmother lives in, but thinks it might be Wuppertal. Thus begins a road trip across Europe in search of granny; the title (in the original "Alice in den Städten") refers to the many cities through which Alice and Philip pass.
The film has two other similarities with "Paper Moon". One is that both films have a brilliant performance from the young female lead. Tatum O'Neal won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, making her the youngest ever winner of a competitive Oscar. Yella Rottländer was never going to match that achievement, but only because the Academy are not in the habit of handing out Oscars for performances in German arthouse movies. Yella's Alice, infuriating but irresistible, is every bit as adorable as Tatum's Addie. She dominates the film, although there is also a good contribution from Rüdiger Vogler as Philip. The other similarity is striking use of black-and-white photography, of the flat, featureless American prairies in "Paper Moon" and of the gritty industrial cities of West Germany here.
In 2008, Philip French, the film critic of The Observer, described "Alice in the Cities" as a film which could not be made today, "partly because of the invention of the mobile phone, partly because of our obsessive fear of anything that might be interpreted as paedophilia". I fear that he is right; there are some films from the seventies, most notoriously Louis Malle's "Pretty Baby", which I feel should not be made today because of their blasé attitude to underage sex, but only the most obsessive Puritans would see anything sexual about the relationship between Philip and Alice. Fears of paedophilia might also mean that even "Paper Moon" could not be remade today unless it were to be made clear that Moses is Addie's real father, something left ambiguous in the original.
I wouldn't rate the film as highly as "Paper Moon", one of the great comedies of the seventies and part of the American tradition of road movies which tell you something about the country and its people. "Alice in the Cities" isn't really a comedy, although there are amusing aspects to the Alice/Philip relationship. Although it is a relatively short film it is also slow-moving, with that typical arthouse feature of several long scenes without dialogue in which nothing seems to happen. It has ambitions to be a serious film, with something serious to say, although I was never sure exactly what. Wim Wenders seemed to be trying hard to say something, without ever actually saying it. The film is, however, still worth watching for its highly atmospheric photography and Rottländer's stellar performance. 6/10.
The man in "Alice in the Cities" is Philip Winter, a German writer who has been commissioned to write an article about the United States. He hasn't managed to produce anything: he hates the country and is suffering from writer's block. Eventually, his publisher loses patience and sacks him. While booking his return flight, he meets a woman, Lisa van Dam, and her young daughter, Alice, who are also trying to get back to Germany but are having difficulties because of a strike by German airport staff. They arrange to fly to Amsterdam and then travel on to Germany overland, but along the way Lisa (who seems to be an irresponsible hippie type) goes missing, leaving Philip responsible for Alice. He decides to reunite her with her grandmother in Germany, but Alice can't remember the address, or even the city her grandmother lives in, but thinks it might be Wuppertal. Thus begins a road trip across Europe in search of granny; the title (in the original "Alice in den Städten") refers to the many cities through which Alice and Philip pass.
The film has two other similarities with "Paper Moon". One is that both films have a brilliant performance from the young female lead. Tatum O'Neal won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, making her the youngest ever winner of a competitive Oscar. Yella Rottländer was never going to match that achievement, but only because the Academy are not in the habit of handing out Oscars for performances in German arthouse movies. Yella's Alice, infuriating but irresistible, is every bit as adorable as Tatum's Addie. She dominates the film, although there is also a good contribution from Rüdiger Vogler as Philip. The other similarity is striking use of black-and-white photography, of the flat, featureless American prairies in "Paper Moon" and of the gritty industrial cities of West Germany here.
In 2008, Philip French, the film critic of The Observer, described "Alice in the Cities" as a film which could not be made today, "partly because of the invention of the mobile phone, partly because of our obsessive fear of anything that might be interpreted as paedophilia". I fear that he is right; there are some films from the seventies, most notoriously Louis Malle's "Pretty Baby", which I feel should not be made today because of their blasé attitude to underage sex, but only the most obsessive Puritans would see anything sexual about the relationship between Philip and Alice. Fears of paedophilia might also mean that even "Paper Moon" could not be remade today unless it were to be made clear that Moses is Addie's real father, something left ambiguous in the original.
I wouldn't rate the film as highly as "Paper Moon", one of the great comedies of the seventies and part of the American tradition of road movies which tell you something about the country and its people. "Alice in the Cities" isn't really a comedy, although there are amusing aspects to the Alice/Philip relationship. Although it is a relatively short film it is also slow-moving, with that typical arthouse feature of several long scenes without dialogue in which nothing seems to happen. It has ambitions to be a serious film, with something serious to say, although I was never sure exactly what. Wim Wenders seemed to be trying hard to say something, without ever actually saying it. The film is, however, still worth watching for its highly atmospheric photography and Rottländer's stellar performance. 6/10.