Review of Palermo Shooting (2008) by Michele F — 01 Nov 2009

1. It started off resembling a photographer version of the director's early movie "Notebook on Cities & Clothes". The surreal cinematography is genuinely delicate and poetic, reminds us of his melancholic past work "Wings of Desire".

2. As the story develops, Wim escalates his artistic presentation of spirituality & metaphysical themes to the next level - abandoning his usual Black & White sequences, he's evolved to using surrealistic settings to construct a dreamy atmosphere.

Yet when everybody was expecting a full blown comeback of our beloved director, the story started to go a little downhill... Wim has his usual philosophical subtlety replaced by some very explicit (and predictable) dialogs between the lead actor & actress, the Platonic relationship & ultimate runaway of the 2 was not awakening but in fact quite a spoiler...

Though the dramatic presentation in the later part has been refreshing, I'd rather see the lead actor not making the attempts.

All in all, Palermo Shooting is still a cool movie from Wim Wenders since long (albeit we wish it had ended earlier...), definitely looking forward to his upcoming releases!!

*The dialog with Death on photography is brutally funny, I wonder if Wim Wenders' saying "Bugger Off!" to people who persuade him that it is a digital age already XD.