Even for Wenders completists, the film is of mostly academic interest: an intermediate entry in the filmmaker’s ongoing investigation into the possibilities of stereoscopic imagery, thus far deployed to far more vibrant effect in his documentaries than in his narrative work. Non-fiction has consumed most of Wenders’ creative energy in the last decade or so: There’s certainly nothing in this sometimes breezy, sometimes windy trifle to match the formal and conceptual ingenuity of “Pina” or “The Salt of the Earth.”Īnd while allowing for the possibility of technical error at the film’s Venice press screening, even the trippy visuals fall short of the inventive standard set by Wenders’ previous 3D work. Tuning into the cod-philosophical witterings of two strangers in an idyllic garden while the apparent author of their words hovers metatextually indoors, “Aranjuez” crowds out its few piquant observations with such gassy poetics as, “The soul is howling to the pale horizon like a hungry she-wolf.”Īnyone who finds that line more deep than dippy is in for a soul-stirring time here, though it’s hard to imagine many international distributors giving them a chance to find out: “Aranjeuz” has less of a pulse than the already inert “Every Thing Will Be Fine,” Wenders’ last foray into 3D arthouse drama, which made scarcely a ripple in theaters despite an all-star cast. Adapted from a stage work by Austrian writer Peter Handke - who previously collaborated with the director to far more stimulating effect on “Wings of Desire” and “The Wrong Move” - Wenders’ first French-language film doesn’t make much of a case for the material as cinema, or even as a particularly good play. After 90 minutes of dense, ceaseless conversation on a largely unnavigable sequence of topics from first sexual experiences to the cultivation of wild gooseberries, the last thing any viewer really wants to hear is, “We have been here in vain.” Yet the line is stated twice in the closing stages of Wim Wenders‘ prettily sunlit but otherwise insufferable 3D talkfest “The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez,” and even without it, it’d be hard to shake the sense of shaggy-dog inconsequentiality from proceedings.
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