New Wim Wenders film searches for the meaning of life
Jochen Kürten kbm
January 25, 2017
Wim Wenders' latest film, "The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez," is a melancholy contemplation of love and life. Originally written for the stage, this is Wenders' fifth collaboration with playwright and friend Peter Handke.
Image: Donata Wenders
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Wim Wenders: 'The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez'
In his new film, "The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez," German director Wim Wenders contemplates love, life, and all that's in between. He based his new film on a play by his friend, Peter Handke.
Image: Neue Road Movies und Alfama Films Production/NFP marketing & distribution
Intimate conversation
It feels like the audience gets to participate in a long, intense conversation. Wim Wender's new film, "The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez," is like theater for the silverscreen - but takes place outdoors. It is comprised of two people - a man and a woman -, a garden, the view of Paris in the distance, the rustle of tree leaves, and the chirping of birds. Wenders shot the minimalist film in 10 days.
Image: Neue Road Movies und Alfama Films Production/NFP marketing & distribution
Wim Wenders and Peter Handke
The filmmaker and the writer are long-time friends. "The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez" is their fifth collaboration. Handke, who lives near Paris, wrote the story for the theater and Wenders altered it slightly for the cinema.
Image: picture alliance/picturedesk/F. Neumayr
The role of the writer
A writer is also featured in Wender's new film. He is the third person the audience gets to know in the 100-minute production. The author played by Jens Harzer, sits at a desk in an old villa on a hill near Paris. He looks into the garden where "his" two characters are talking. The writer in the film is Peter Handke's alter ego - and writes what the pair in the garden talks about.
Image: Alfama Films Production
The beauty of simplicity
Wim Wenders said that there was "a climate of freedom" among his small team on the set outside Paris. Although the film was shot using 3D technology, it had a low budget.
Image: Donata Wenders
An ex's advantage
Actress Sophie Semin co-stars as half of the pair in the garden. She had an advantage when it came to performing the dialogue written by Peter Handke. Semin married the writer in 1995, though they've been separated for many years.
Image: Alfama Films Production
An actor to watch out for
Reta Kateb co-stars with Sophie Semin in "The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez." Kateb was born in Paris as the son of an Algerian actor and French nurse. He also has Czech and Italian roots. The actor also plays the lead in "Django," which will be opening the Berlin International Film Festival in February.
Image: Alfama Films Production
Nick Cave performs
Wim Wenders places high value on film music, and has long been a fan of Nick Cave's. The Australian musician made a brief guest appearance in "The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez," singing "Into My Arms" and accompanying himself on the piano.
Image: Leocadie Handke
Time, love, life
Poetically set, "The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez" is a film about the passing of time, about life and love. The minimalist setting - the garden and old villa are the only background - and its long dialogues demand a great deal of patience from the audience.
Image: Alfama Films Production
At the premiere
At its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, "The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez" was only moderately well received. For many in the audience, it was too heavy on the dialogue, and therefore presumably better suited to the stage. Wim Wenders took the criticism with a grain of salt and was upbeat at the festival. The film opens in German cinemas on January 26.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
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German filmmaker Wim Wenders and Austrian playwright Peter Handke have known each other since 1966. At that time, Wenders went to watch Handke's legendary play "Offending the Audience" at the Theater Oberhausen.
Three years later, they started working together. Wenders' short film "3 American LPs" was based on a work by Handke. Two years after that, the filmmaker adapted the novel "The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick." The two later teamed up to write the screenplays for the films "The Wrong Move" (1975) and "Wings of Desire" (1987).
"The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez" is now the fifth collaboration between Wim Wenders and Peter Handke.
Wenders filmed Handke's 'summer dialogue'
"Peter Handke calls this text a summer dialogue," Wenders said of his friend and long-time colleague. "It's about two people, a woman and a man, who are not a couple (anymore?), but who've known each other for a long time. They're sitting at a table in a garden or a park. They are surrounded by trees that are rustled by the wind now and then. Below them is an expanse of fields and Paris can be seen in the distance. It's summer…."
Peter Handke's alter ego appears in the film, played by Jens Harzer, pictured here with Wim WendersImage: Donata Wenders
From these lines, it's clear to see what binds the writer and the filmmaker. It's their precise and nearly dissecting view of people and landscapes, of the elements and of elementary aspects of life.
Wenders and Handke are keen observers of life. That may sound mundane, but it sums up their approach: They are not interested in superficialities, but in the inner being found within both people and nature. This becomes all the more clear in "The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez."
Searching for the meaning of life
The dialogue between the two actors in the film is about nothing less than life itself. What is meaningful? What is important? What is the essence of love and of relationships between men and women? And what binds and separates the sexes?
Equally important are the objects that appear in the film - the garden table, the apple that's resting on it, the glasses and canister of juice, the 19th-century villa, the music box. The latter serves the function of forming a particular connection between Wenders and Handke. Numerous scenes in past Wenders films have shown protagonists holding a similar old-fashioned music box, and Handke wrote a text called "Essay about the Jukebox" in 1990.
Penchant for pathos
Both Wenders and Handke also love emotionalism; they enjoy imbuing images and texts with significance and evoking moods and atmospheres. Both tend to wallow in memories and play with time. Things can get kitschy at times, and it may not be everyone's cup of tea.
In "The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez," the audience can expect both gorgeous scenery that, despite the theatrical setting, have a cinematic effect, and unnerving dialogues that go in endless circles.
