The American Friend + Alice in the Cities

LUNA MONDAY DOUBLE AT LEEDERVILLE

Two moving portraits by Wim Wenders that capture identity and displacement.

AN AMERICAN FRIEND (1977) | M

The American Friend is a dreamlike take on Patricia Highsmith's antihero Tom Ripley. A chance encounter brings picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman (Bruno Ganz) into the orbit of art dealer/forger Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper), who decides on a whim to ruin the hapless German everyman's life. Leveraging Zimmerman's potentially terminal illness diagnosis, Ripley manipulates him into a dangerous criminal underworld voyage across Europe that becomes an existential search for meaning. Chaotic and at times transcendent, this thriller blends West German and American sensibilities to explore cultural imperialism and the stories it tells.

15-minute intermission

ALICE IN CITIES (1995) | M

The first of the road films that would come to define the career of Wim Wenders, the magnificent Alice in the Cities is an emotionally generous and luminously shot odyssey. A German journalist (Rüdiger Vogler) is driving across the United States to research an article; it’s a disappointing trip, in which he is unable to truly connect with what he sees. Things change, however, when he has no choice but to take a young girl named Alice (Yella Rottländer) with him on his return trip to Germany, after her mother (Lisa Kreuzer)—whom he has just met—leaves the child in his care. Though they initially find themselves at odds, the pair begin to form an unlikely friendship.