Land Of Plenty Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES PLOT SUMMARY
The Gospels, preached at a Skid-Row mission, contrast with images of LA's homeless, post-9/11 mistrust, and anti-Muslim violence. Lana cares about the poor - she's just come to LA from the West Bank, staying at a mission. She seeks her uncle Paul, a burned out Agent-Orange-addled Vietnam War vet, now a vigilante security cop, watching for terrorists two years after 9/11, suspicious of everything, including a Muslim carrying boxes of Borax. Lana and Paul drive to Death Valley, Lana to take the body of a murdered homeless Muslim to his brother, Paul to follow the Borax trail. Does family reconciliation resemble something larger?
| Michelle Williams | Lana |
| John Diehl | Paul |
| Shaun Toub | Hassan |
| Wendell Pierce | Henry |
| Richard Edson | Jimmy |
| Burt Young | Sherman |
| Yuri Elvin | Officer Elvin |
| Jeris Poindexter | Charles |
| Rhonda Stubbins White | Dee Dee |
| Victoria Thomas | News Reporter |
| Matthew Kimbrough | News Anchor |
| Paul West | Policeman |
| Jeffrey Vincent Parise | Coroner's Assistant |
| Christa Lang | Trailer Park Woman |
| Warren Stearns | Mortician |
| Wim Wenders |
6.50 out of 10 (1610 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Another bad movie about America from a foreigner
posted on 09 Jun 2009How wonderful. Yet another movie about America by someone who has visited here probably a half dozen times, a day a piece, and believes himself to be an "expert" on the country. Sheesh. I should take a trip to Germany for a week and then come back and make a movie about Germany as the "land of Nazis" or some such. Wim IL boy, you should get together with Lars von Trier and make the ULTIMATE movie about the Americans. Of course we all know it takes a pretentious left-leaning "we are the world" European to make a "real" movie about America.Yeah, right. For a continent that started not one but TWO world wars, Europe sure has a lot of opinions about America's wrong "foreign policy".P.S. Don't worry, Wim IL boy, there's plenty of UC-Berkeley Americans that'll just love your movie. Of course, these are the same people who thinks George W. Bush is worst than Hitler, and that a painting of a can of soup is "sheer genius"!!
'Angst and Alienation in America'
posted on 05 Jun 2009LAND OF PLENTY is nowhere near as powerful a title for this brilliant Wim Wenders film as the original working title, ANGST AND ALIENATION IN America. This is another Wim Wenders wonder of film-making, a quiet little powerhouse of a movie that should be required viewing for all of us. Wenders wrote this moving piece with assistance from Scott Derrickson and Michael Meredith and directs a sterling cast in an exploration of the American psyche post 9/11, and few writer/directors could have keener insight into the state of mind of a country at odds with itself and the rest of the world.Lana (Michelle Williams) is flying back to the US after a two-year stay on the West Bank. She is the daughter of missionaries, having lived her life in Africa and other missionary fields and she is flying home after her mother's death to deliver a letter to her uncle Paul (John Diehl), a damaged Vietnam vet who has cut himself off from his family and the rest of life and in response to 9/11, his mind being obsessed with tracking Sleeper Cells to destroy terrorists in his own homemade surveillance van. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, Lana is met by Henry (Wendell Pierce) who is a pastor who runs a mission for the homeless of Los Angeles and provides Lana with a bleak room and a job in the kitchen of the mission. Lana is full of praise for God for all things, the optimistic evangelical girl who fails to recognize evil. One member of the mission bunkhouse is a Pakistani Hassan (Shaun Toub) whose garments and fixation on boxes of Borax alerts Paul to his possible involvement as a terrorist.Lana contacts Paul, desires to connect with him, but Paul is aloof, obsessed with his 'mission' to ferret out terrorists. When Hassan is the victim of a drive-by shooting Lana is devastated at the loss of a human being while Paul is convinced Hassan was hit by a larger organization. Paul with his colleague Jimmy (Richard Edson) discover Hassan has a brother who lives in Trona (outside of Death Valley). Together Lana and Paul transport the corpse of Hassan to his brother Youssef (Bernard White) who lives in a hut in Trona: Lana is committed to doing the right thing, Paul sees an entry into more evidence for evil to quash. While Lana is warmly entertained by Youssef, Paul investigates the town and finds that the Borax boxes of Hassan's business were innocent means of washing carpets imported from Pakistan. The coming together of Youssef, Lana, and Paul finally achieves meaning when Paul reads the letter from his sister, Lana's mother, who somehow manages to erase all lines of prejudice, bigotry, religious differences, misunderstanding - finally giving breathing room to the damaged souls of the brotherhood of man the three represent.Wenders manages to bathe his story in the light of reality yet maintain an unprejudiced stance in moving his characters through their paths of revelation. The camera wanders a bit, the music blends perhaps too heavily, and the pieces of the puzzle don't always fit together - much like life doesn't always fall into place the way we expect. But there is much to learn from Wenders' wisdom and with the aid of perfect performances from Michelle Williams, John Diehl, and Wendell Pierce he has created an indelible work. A fine film for us all to ponder. Grady Harp
An Absurd movie that takes itself seriously
posted on 08 Apr 2009I get it the Diehl character is s'posed to be a microcosm of America itself - seeing Arab terrorists under every rock, only to find out at the end that it's his own actions all along that got him into that siege state and truly if he practices good-will to all men everything will be rainbows and lollipops. Sorry Wim you have made amazing movies in the past that stay neutral of the politics and for good reason, polemics are your weak point and they weaken this a well-made, amazingly filmed movie with absurd characters, dialog and plotting. Better luck on your next flick. Another thing that yanked my crank was the belabored point of the homeless section of LA being there for reasons of hunger, these people don't get enough to eat. Truly these folks aren't eating regally but the real hunger these folks is a spiritual hunger, an emotional hunger, a mental hunger. They need self-respect, self-worth, dignity which you can't give a man. Yeah those folks are hungry and if they need it it is available. Less the center for hunger in America, I would say it's more the center for alcoholism, drug-abuse, mental suffering and economic devastation. Dealing with hunger although a noble endeavor is band-aiding a more profoundly systematic societal and age-old human problem of homelessness. Bill Diehl was good though and Michelle Williams was cute as the young yet (cliched) old soul.
2 out of 123456789 10 !
posted on 06 Apr 2009Wenders was great with Million $ Hotel.I don't know how he came up with this film! The idea of giving the situation after spt11 and the view of American Society is hopeful,that makes it 2 out of ten.But this is not a movie.Is that the best someone can do with a great idea(the west-east clash).There are important things going on in middle east and it is just issued on the screen of a MAC* with the fingers of an Amerian girl who is actually at the level of stupidity(because she is just ignorant about the facts).The characters are not well shaped.And the most important thing is the idea that is given with religion is somehow funny to me.At the ending scene Lana says lets just be quiet and try to listen.And the background music says "...I will pray".The thing is not about religion actually.But it ends up with this.How you are gonna see the truth if you just close your eyes and pray.The lights are already shining on the truth.Its just that nobody wants to see it. ps: "My home is not a place.It is people"The only thing that gets 10 out of 10 is that sentence.But it is wasted behind this film making. (by the way; as "someone" mentioned below ,Americas finest young man are not finest,they are just the "poor" and the "hopeless" ones who sign up for the army in need of good paychecks which is not provided by the government ! )
Land of Plenty: Film of Deficiency
posted on 25 Aug 2008"Land of Plenty" is a thought-provoking film. How couldn't it be? Wenders, a provocative director, taking on 9/11 and its aftermath? Truly, not to disparage Wenders, a monkey with a digital camera and a placard reading "Tell me about 9/11" could create something worth watching given the subject.In Wenders case, he has made an insular film focusing on two people, Lana (Michelle Williams) and her Uncle Paul (John Diehl), and the after effects of 9/11 upon both. Lana is a painfully naive 20 yr. old Christian who has just returned from a missionary stint in Palestine (where she witnessed 9/11) to work in a Los Angeles mission while searching for evidence justifying vehement, anti-American sentiment abroad. In her possession is a letter written by her recently deceased mom, Paul's sister. Deliverance of the letter compels here to track down her wayward uncle, the letter's addressee. Paul is in his 50s, a shell-shocked, paranoid Vietnam vet, intent on keeping this country safe from the free-roaming terrorists who are, in his eyes, ubiquitous within the City of Angels.Wenders draws these characters in such vivid Blue and Red colors that you would have to have your head up your butt not to see that they represent the mindset of Democrats (Lana) and Republicans (Paul). In fact, in various interviews, and during a Q & A after the 3/31/05 screening I attended, Wenders asserted that this film IS "a political film." Though he feels he has not made a polemical film: he has. You will be hard-pressed not to choose sides while watching the film. As for Wenders, he leaves little doubt as to his choice: true Blue.To that end, one need only take into consideration Wenders' mocking presentation of Paul as a hyper-vigilant nut case roaming L.A. in a beat-up, surveillance-equipment-crammed van in search of terrorist activity. Paul undertakes this toothless work functioning as a self-appointed renegade operative for Homeland Security, who have no connection with him. Paul's right hand man, Jimmy, is a grungy garage mechanic whose only connections to top-secret sources are Internet search engines. They bring to mind as Beavis & Butthead, with not much more at their disposal than Harriet-the-Spy in terms of fruitful resources. But for one scene showing Paul suffering the ill effects of post-war syndrome during a gripping nightmare, Wenders shows him to be something of a lunatic rube--a virtual laughing stock. Indeed, most of the movie's laughs come at Paul's expense because just about every action he undertakes furthers one's opinion of him as a maligned, pathetic xenophobe. (No doubt, if this movie finds a US distributor, most patriotic Vietnam vets will express their outrage at being presented as loose cannon extremists.) Wenders' presentation of Paul clearly displays his loathing for such Reds: the pro-war, high-angst, flag-waving, Dubbya-backing, kill'-em-all-and-let-God-sort-'em out folk who tote, and vote for, the conservative line.It's a credit to John Diehl that his intense, career-defining portrayal of Paul embellishes the shallow character created by Wenders. Diehl never allows Paul to breakdown completely, despite the various defeats he suffers, and has suffered. You want to like him for to see him overcome his burdens. He's troubled but not entirely lacking heart.As for Michelle Williams, she is god-awful as Lana. Wenders wrote the part for her, but one wonders if he did so just so that he could see her face on the big screen. With her bobbed black hair and perpetual doe-in-the-headlights countenance, she brings to mind a fifth-rate imitation of Audrey Tattou ("Amelie") and the poor man's Gweneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johannson ("Lost in Translation"). For the most part, she functions as eye candy. At other times she's a distraction. And, in one embarrassing scene--a testament to Wenders' music video work furthering my belief that he had other things in mind when he wrote the part for her--where Lana is seen in isolation wearing headphones while bopping to a tune emanating from her MP3, you beg for someone to push her off the mission's rooftop. In short, Williams fails to ACT, neither adding nuance to Lana's emotions nor any inventive idiosyncrasy to Lana's physical being. Where Diehl took what he was given and ran with it like a crazed wolverine, Williams was unable to enhance her character, instead, opting to stand around, a vapid clothes horse.Wenders' presentation of his two main characters in such unmistakable hues ends up reducing Lana and Paul to one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs, relegating them to ancillary evidence supporting his messages that mental, spiritual, social and political poverty are bad, and that the USA's polemical political system, which has reduced and divided citizens into two opposing factions, sucks.The title comes from a Leonard Cohen song, "The Land of Plenty." Cohen's lyrics--And I don't really know who sent me/to raise my voice and say/May the lights in the Land of Plenty/Shine on the truth some day--influence Wenders' directional choices. He employs the song strategically throughout the film, right up to the very end where truncated lyrics: "Shine on/The Truth," float in a slate gray New York skyline above Ground Zero, as if sky-written by a passing plane.An epitaph? An invocation? A critique? A prayer?Probably, all of the above.Despite Michelle Williams' abysmal performance, the conceptual limitations inherent in the rapid creation and completion of the film and the shortcomings of Wenders' obvious one-dimensional characters and biased message, "Land of Plenty" remains a provocative film worth viewing. If for no other reason than to remind us that life ain't always pretty, even here in the land of plenty. One hopes that one U.S. distributor will have the courage to pick up the film and disseminate it nationwide. If nothing else, viewers will come away thinking about just how divisive our Red and Blue political system is and maybe, just maybe, start thinking of how to change it.
Decent, slow moving
posted on 18 Jun 2008This is a story about a paranoid Vietnam Vet who is ridiculously searching for terrorist cells post 9/11, and his liberal Palestine-loving estranged niece, who returns from there to work in a homeless shelter in downtown LA. They both are brought together by the death of a homeless man, and for different purposes, they agree to return the body to his family. Wim Wenders is known for long,windy films...and this one is not much different. The good parts of this movie are its intelligence, script, direction, acting, casting, and original music.The unfortunate part is the writing, and the characters are drawn a little too simplistic or caricaturish. Someone else noted how Wenders deserves praise for taking on the subject of a post 9-11 dichotomy between those who feel we are not doing enough to fight terrorism vs those who think we've already shed too much blood. I agree. But Wenders is not American, and so he does fall a little flat in drawing the characters right here, unless he had nothing at all to do with the writing.Somewhat engaging.6 points.
paranoid
posted on 19 Dec 2007Land of Plenty is about an Viet Nam Vet looking for terrorists around every corner. His naive niece from Palestine visits at the behest of her dead mother to get an education about America and Americans. The majority of the film is about the vet imagining all kinds of terrorist plots as he goes from place to place in LA following people and making all kinds of assumptions to support his neurosis brought on by agent pink which was the precursor to agent orange. The niece learns that America is a land of plenty that not everyone gets a piece of as she takes up residence in a mission while looking for her uncle. A drive by shooting of a homeless Pakistani brings them together as she looks for the next of kin and he looks for the terrorist cell. Upon meeting the Pakistani relative, they come to the realization that while America is a great country, the real America is not the stuff of legend, it is the struggle of its people to make their way through their lives and through the world.
A Nutshell Review: Land of Plenty
posted on 27 Nov 2007This is my maiden foray into the Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF), and my first review of a film featured in the SIFF.The film tells a story of Lana, who is going to LA after her mother passed away, in search of her uncle. She has been travelling the world with her missionary father, and her last place of stay had been Tel Aviv. While we are shown the glistening skyline of LA, we are soon shown the poverty zone, and how Lana feels about leaving one warzone into another, that the war against poverty is not so much different from the world she had left.Her uncle Paul, a Vietnam war veteran exposed to the infamous Agent Orange, is now a self-possessed vigilante, playing his overly zealous part in homeland security, rigging his van into a one-stop travelling security surveillance van. (Heck, even his handphone ringtone is the national anthem!) He randomly tails people deemed suspicious to him, and things get interesting when a man of Arab descent is spotted by him buying boxes of chemicals (the irony of making a dirty bomb from a cleaning agent) and later on, being gunned down by unknown suspects.To reach out to Paul, Lana had to play along at times, to get Paul to open up to her, as their initial meeting isn't really cordial, and it is of course difficult to strike up family conversation with relatives you have hardly seen all this while. But things take a turn when Paul finally wakes up to reality, and his futile investigative effort all comes crashing down for him.While there is little drastic character development, it is the subtle character representation that is key in this film. Paul represents the "ra-ra America", those who are bent on protecting the homeland at all costs, those who are inept in collecting facts (yeah, there's a dumpster diving scene which rocked) and making decisions based on faulty intelligence. Lana, on the other hand, represents the rest of the world. The compassionate world, reaching out to diversity and trying their best in understanding this difference. It is no surprise that the filmmakers showcase the different attitudes that these 2 characters exude towards a Pakistani whom they meet towards the end.Good music is peppered throughout the movie, and I always appreciate films that introduce appropriate tunes for each scene that punctuates the entire atmosphere beautifully (Think Cameron Crowe movies). And one poignant line in the film stuck to me as the film begins in LA and ends in Ground Zero, NY - if we can hear the 3000 souls asking us not to use their name in vain, as an excuse to kill more people.For those in Singapore who wish to catch this film, I don't think there is a repeat screening, so you might have to catch it on discs. And by the way, the lead actress looks like a cross between Audrey Tautou and Liv Tyler - so there.
True statement
posted on 28 Oct 2007So, what I read here is criticism on one side and admiration on the other. The critics unfortunately hardly have anything to say about the contents of the movie. For them its more about the making of it, that they find to be annoying. For those guys it does not seem to be artistic enough. Those are the same people who joyfully analyze the music of their latest progressive rock album even months after its release.But there are exceptions among the critics, who are certainly just as paranoid as Uncle Paul. There is a complaint about foreigners, who have visited the States a half dozen times, making critical movies about it. I guess that Wim Wenders spend sufficient time over here to be able to figure out the stereotype American. Besides we get a lot of news and facts about America and the world in the media in Europe. So unlike Americans who call "World News" the news about the wars of the world we actually tend to know stuff about other countries.The movie by the way is not only about 9-11, in my opinion, but American foreign politics over decades. Uncle Paul supports this policy, all the useless warfare, from the very depth of his heart. He is afraid, he is brainwashed. But he represents a good deal of US citizens. One could possibly even say, American society. Think about this. Brainwashing starts in Elementary school: Bla, bla, bla, ..., and justice for all! Man, what a lie. It should say: Bla, bla, bla, ..., and justice for all people who can afford justice = Whites.But that is only my opinion. However, Wim Wenders is a believer when it comes to American ideas. He wants America to actually stand for, for what it is "supposed to stand". He is an American patriot longing for a better world, led by the strongest country on earth. But led in a different way, the peaceful and fearless way. Sadly enough, a lot of Americans will not understand that massage because they are too stupid and brainwashed by a government (Democratic and Republican alike), that only longs for more wars to be able to get more tax money out of the sales of the weapon industry.I do not even share Wim Wenders' view. If it were up to me the US may blow up in its entirety and I would even give my poor little temporary-American life for that. However, I enjoyed the movie a lot because of reasons that were already mentioned by other people. It is worth watching.Thanks Wim!
Not all winners
posted on 10 Oct 2007Perhaps the most significant thing about this film is the majority of the critical reception in America: While objectively speaking the film is not very critical of America, while it is one of the most balanced 9/11 films, it has been treated like the plague. This indicates the heavy self-censorship American media have imposed on themselves and ... reflects John Diels character Uncle Pauls paranoia nicely. Accurately. From the book "Vernon God Little" to "Land of Plenty", American reviewers, pundits, and 'intellectuals' are as sensitive as an eyeball to sand towards foreign commentary and critique of their society.I downloaded this movie by accident, looking for the similarly titled BBC drama "In a Land of Plenty". Upon seeing that Michelle Williams was in it, I decided not to delete it right away. Halfway through the pic I thought to look it up here, and learned then that Wim Wenders was directing it. And now you'll expect me to say that it was one these serendipitously great finds, a gem unknown, a great movie. Hmmm I can't, since I thought the film a tat too depressing for that.The character of Uncle Paul is all too paranoid, too realistic for my taste. I really don't think that this character is grossly distorted. The greatness about this character is threefold: a) As a viewer you're left unsure whether he's really mentally ill or not, b) he's surely representative of a part of the American population (hopefully not a large part, but I fear yes) and c) he's been greatly portrayed by Diehl. I detest him as much as J.R. Ewing was detested.As Europeans, we are used to think of Americans/Republicans as the winners, who despite their lack of intelligence, still manage to rule the world/the USA, who are winning because they all (more or less) have the white picket fence thing going on. This movie shows that not all right-wingers are indeed winners, that there are very sad and depressing people among them. It hits home that Po' White Trash is not a thing of the past. I mean, DUDE! This guy is a sad, sad figure.Of course the character of Lana is much more appealing and attractive, and I watched Michelle with open mouth every time she graced the screen with her deceptively natural acting.The only criticism I have of the film is in its end dialog: Paul asks why people cheered on 9/11. When Lana says "Because they hate us" it isn't made clear why the world hates America. Wenders either chickens out or loves his adopted country too much. Or, maybe he does indeed see both sides. The people of the world hate America, because Americans always side with the dictators and the oppressors: Pinochet, Videla of Argentina, the Israelis (and not with the Jews: in WWII they denied several Jewish requests for the bombing of concentration camps), Mubarak, Marcos of the Philipines, Apartheid etc. Aside from one time when it didn't, in Kosovo, Americans have always sided with torturing dictators to oppress the poor. We don't hate you because of your freedom. If we did that, we all attack Sweden and Holland. Smoke out Amsterdam (pun intended). We hate you because you could help us win our freedom with relative ease, but you choose not do so. Because otherwise you have to pay 2 cents more on the gallon for gasoline, god forbid!!
Flags, flags, everywhere...
posted on 29 May 2007http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com/There isn't too much to like about Wim Wenders' films over the last twenty years. There have been a few bright spots, but for the most part, Wenders' obsession with America has gotten the worst of him. In his prime, few directors since Antonioni were as adept at depicting inner monologues through silence. Wenders' characters were complicated men of few words.Over time Wenders love affair with America somehow convinced him that the 'less is more' approach was failing. Wenders threw his greatest strength out the door and substituted it with what would become, over time and many films, his achilles heel: big ideas.The characters in Land of Plenty aren't really individual people, they are ideas. These characters represent something grander, something excruciatingly ambitious: the American conscience. Lofty goals of this sort often end up as preachy and pretentious and LOP's screenplay is just that. Shot on the cheap, on digital video, LOP feels like noble idea rushed into production without the benefit of enough revisions to weed out the heavy handedness. Films concerned with the traumatic effects of 9/11 are compelled to be both profound and reverential, the problem is profound and reverential seldom make for a worthwhile movie going experience. If there was a rating system based on the number of American flags displayed in a movie, LOP would score full points, as it is, LOP rates very low.
An insight into American fears and hopes ...
posted on 07 May 2007A must-see for anyone who is either a Wim Wenders fan or a person interested in the fears and hopes of contemporary America. German director in a brilliant way makes us ponder upon all the issues so essential to understanding American reality after 9/11. Ethnic prejudices, stereotypes, homelessness,terrorism, Vietnam war, pursuit for an identity, search for lost relatives - all these components are omnipresent, smoothly woven. Wenders mastery reveals in the fact that he manages to touch upon serious topics and in the same time introduce elements of humor and even grotesque. "Land of plenty" leaves us with the voice of Leonard Cohen and plenty of thoughts about relation between individual and contemporary world.
American Reality
posted on 27 Oct 2006The American daughter of missionaries Lana (Michelle Williams) returns to Los Angeles from Palestine to work in a mission helping homeless people. Lana was born in Ohio and raised in South Africa and Middle East, and she is an authentic citizen of the world, connected through Internet and aware of how other people see the lack of culture and knowledge and exaggerated patriotism of average American people. Her unique relative is her unknown uncle Paul (John Diehl), a veteran of Vietnam War that cut relationships with his family and is bigot and paranoid. Paul lives in a surveillance van, lives as if he were a secret agent, sees conspiracy and terrorist cells everywhere, and has a great prejudice against Arabs and other non-American breeds after the September, 11th. They meet each other, and when they see the murder of a poor Pakistanis nearby the mission, they travel together to the small town of Trone to deliver his corpse to the family, where Paul sees a different reality."Land of Plenty" is a very well acted low budget movie, with great performances of Michelle Williams and John Diehl. Wim Wenders tries to picture the reality of North America unknown for foreigners and even common Americans, with homeless and alienated people living with fear, angst and prejudice, totally disconnected of the world, instead of the land of opportunities and plenty of the American Dream shown in most of the American movies. In this regard, he is very well succeeded, but in my opinion I found the character of Paul absolutely exaggerated, using many apparatuses and gadgets in his "work". The beautiful and shining character of Michelle Williams gives the hope that the world can be a better place someday. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Medo e Obsessão" ("Fear and Obsession")
Plenty Provoking
posted on 27 Sep 2006Somewhere in Trona, a near-ghost town you pass through on the road to Death Valley, the full extent of Uncle Paul's delusions is demonstrated. And at that same moment, I realized he was the personification of post-9/11 America, raging, raving, striking blindly at false targets, and kidding ourselves that we are safer now that we've invaded Iraq without justification and reelected the worst U.S. president in history. The film promises there may be some hope for us. But only if we have the courage to stand on the edge of the abyss. The line that resonated most for me was that the 3,000 innocent people who died in 9/11 could not have wanted their deaths to lead to more dying. This movie was a masterpiece. It finally offered me a way to think about 9/11 and subsequent events without making me crazy and despairing.
Why so bad?
posted on 04 Aug 2006I really disagree with some American comments here, maybe just because I am European, I don't know, but anyway I liked that movie. It is stupid to think that Wenders wanted to represent into the main character a typical American, obviously it is just an extreme position about the fear of anything (common in USA), but it doesn't reflex the society, it is a product of it. It doesn't take a wonderful picture of USA, but at the same time it doesn't distruct it, it want just show the paradoxes of that land, it want to be watched like the "land of plenty" and it is not, but it doesn't mean to be the hell. I understand when Americans find only cliché inside, but some of them are true, your country has fear mania, not all of you but some. In Italy as well we say that everybody dislike Berlusconi, but he is prime minister. But now it's time to speak about the movie: it is nice, characters' work is well-made and elaborated, Location are incredible, they show another USA, different from other movies. I didn't like Michelle Williams because of dowson's creek, but here she is not bad, her character is understood by people, but I think it is the work of Wim.
The Child Becomes the Angel
posted on 19 Jun 2006This is another masterpiece from the indomitable Wim Wenders. However, it is only a classic, not a hyper-classic like 'Paris, Texas' (1984) or 'Don't Come Knocking' (2005). Those two films engaged the viewer in desperate anguish and overwhelming emotion from the very first moments and sustained it throughout, whereas in this film, the emotional intensity and involvement only grab the viewer in the last third of the story. This is partly because the film was written and filmed so quickly, with no time for deep maturation of plot structure in order to discover subtler ways to pull the viewer in earlier. The title is ironical and comes from a song by Leonard Cohen, which is used near the end to the usual Wenders devastating effect. He has always been a master at punching us in the solar plexus with his sophisticated use of the best music. Here, as in the succeeding film 'Don't Come Knocking', the searing cinematography of Franz Lustig shows us surfaces beneath which we immediately plunge. The centrepiece of this film is the amazing Michelle Williams. In her, Wenders combines his recurring 'child motif' with his recurring 'angel motif', since Williams plays a character, Lana, who is primarily two things: (1) a 'former child', and (2) currently a working angel. Just as Wenders is probably the only mainstream director who has ever shown a man defecating on screen, in 'Kings of the Road' (1976), so here he may be the only one who has truly shown the intimate moments of silent prayer. And we are not talking of 'The Song of Bernadette' or any sentimental religious picture here, with its simulated devotions and piety, we are talking the real thing. Throughout the film, Williams is shown in extreme closeup whispering her ongoing dialogue with God, saying things like 'Thank you for this day, thank you for this room.' She asks for his blessings and in emergencies even his help. Williams has such extremely unusual personal qualities that she pulls this off completely. She looks like what she is off screen, a reader, a thinker, a collector of first editions. (I'm sure we must bid against each other on Ebay all the time.) Wenders has as usual used his stunning genius for casting to get the perfect match. He has also found another one of his brilliant character actors, always there but always overlooked for years, in John Diehl, to play the paranoid lost uncle, Paul. This is not at all a political film, it is as usual with Wenders a spiritual journey and a revelation of the bleakness at the empty heart of part of the American Dream. What could be emptier than Trona, California, shown here in all its barren devastation, and yet that empty place is where it all comes together, where the richness and redemption of the spirit take place in surroundings so desolate that it can only be The Material World which is being transcended right before our eyes. The ostensible subject of this film is post-September 11 America. But that is only an excuse for the true subject: the human spirit struggling against emptiness, fear, delusion, and loss to achieve some peace, some acceptance, some love and some fulfillment. There is nothing affected about Wim Wenders. He courageously attempts to say the deepest things in the deepest way that the screen allows. It is true that the character Paul is one of the most extreme characters imaginable, a man driven mad by dioxin poisoning and helicopter crashes as a special forces sergeant in Viet Nam. He has taken refuge in reenacting the lost War (which he insists obstinately 'we won') by trying to fight the new enemy, terrorism. He is a one-man surveillance vigilante in a van, who is determined to find the enemy this time and save his country. But it is all a pathetic delusion, and he is slowly and gently brought down from his 'high' into the truth about things by his patient 20 year-old niece whom he has not seen since she was a baby. Eventually, with infinite acceptance and caring, this crazed uncle achieves a grounding in reality after his years of torment, and comes to see the world with the unblinking eyes of Franz Lustig and the sad and tolerant vision of the child-angel. This film is another one of those Wenders miracles.
Wenders is a consistent disappointment
posted on 02 May 2006With a tendency to repeat himself, Wenders has been a consistent disappointment ever since he hit it big with 'Paris Texas'.'Land of plenty' is no exception. Taking into the fact that I anticipated an average-mediocre film even before I went in, Wenders' ambitions seem to always get the better of him. It's taken for grated now his films are heavy-handed and bombastic.I weren't sure if I was watching a comedy that mocks Middle America or some thriller. The outcome of Diehl's character is wholly predicable. Wender's insistence on layering many many scenes with some rock song is also intensely annoying. He was covering up the holes in his script and direction by jazzing up the scenes.I am certain that many people will find this film important and resonant but in all honestly, this clumsy and didactic effort only speaks of poor direction.Interesting that Wenders professed that while making 'Paris Texas', he had great help from Sam Sheppard with the script. Yes, that was Wenders' best and he should understand now he needs a good scriptwriter. His films from the past 15 years+ were a total mess.
A very personal relation to America
posted on 16 Apr 2006I think with 10/10 this movie is actually rated too high normally i'd give it a 8 or 9/10. But let me tell you why i didn't: At the time when this movie came to the cinemas in Germany, the anti-American atmosphere that broke off in the after-math of the decision of the German chancellor Schroeder, that German troops won't take part in the Iraq War (a good decision as far as I'm concerned), reached a peak. People arguing against that, often stressed the historical role of the American liberators of Germany and stuff. That's all true but it doesn't say much to somebody like me, who's in his twenties. Nevertheless I think there are reasons to have a more complex picture of America. And this movie actually tries to show something of this as well. It also tells an American story and analyzes the American society from the point of somebody (Wim Wenders) who went to America to find something better than in Germany. He found it. Then became realistic about it, and found that there isn't a perfect place on earth, and America definitely isn't. And so this is also a movie of a personal picture of America after 09/11. And at this very special moment it was also a very political movie in Germany, even if I have to confess few people saw it like this...
Plenty of what?
posted on 21 Mar 2006The hysterical thing about this movie is that, according to the director, it has difficulty finding a distributor in the U.S. because most of them that viewed it couldn't reconcile the seemingly conflicting messages of Christianity and American angst. The thought of anyone seeing this as a religious film in anyway is laughable.Because a minister at a mission prays with the homeless or wishes someone "Godspeed" this makes it a "Christian" movie? One could interpret that it is actually mocking religion for in the "Land of Plenty" with all of its material excess, the best an organized mission can do is hand out a bowl of soup and a bible verse. Plenty of unfortunate or downtrodden maybe? Plenty of useless homeless missions? How about plenty of psycho Vietnam vets? As a pill-popping delusional survivor of agent "pink" are we to think America is a "Land of Plenty" of paranoid patriots? Maybe we have plenty of psychiatric patients? Certainly we don't have plenty of people concerned about Palestine politics based on the main characters phone conversation in the film. Of course if you worked in a German homeless shelter the unfortunate there would be much more concerned about peace in a distant land than their own personal survival as the world knows how Europe is the "Continent of Plenty" when it comes to sophistication.Indeed I agreed with the title in the end as the United States is the "Land of Plenty" and in this particular case it refers to the abundance of poor scripts, amateur acting and dispassionately directed films. Life is too short and one, even an American, doesn't have "plenty" of time to waste watching this piece.
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Wenders has lost his way
posted on 06 Aug 2009The End of Violence and certainly the Million Dollar hotel hinted at the idea the Wenders has lost his vision, his ability to tell compelling stories through a map of the moving picture. The Land of Plenty seals the coffin, I'm afraid, by being a vastly unimaginative, obviously sentimental and cliché'd film. The characters are entirely flat and stereotyped, the writing, plot and direction are amateurish, at best. For the first time in quite a while, I was impatient for the film to end so I could get on with my life. The war-torn delirium of the uncle, the patriotic abstract gazing at the sky at the conclusion...it all just struck me as being so simple and pathetic, hardly the work of a filmmaker who once made some compelling magic on screen. What happened? The days of experimentation, perceptive writing and interesting filming possibilities are long behind him, I'm afraid. Let's hope he finds his inspiration again... At the Toronto film festival, which is where I saw the film, Wenders was there to introduce it. Completely lacking in humility, he offered us the following: "I hope...no, wait...I KNOW you're going to enjoy the next two hours." I'm afraid he couldn't be more wrong...