A good movie

Ever since I saw ‘Paris Texas’ almost 30 years ago, I became instantly a huge fan of Wim Wenders but, to be honest, it had been a while since I saw one of his movies so it was really cool to see his last directorial effort with my film club. Well, it turned out to be at the same time such a simple but also such a complex movie after all. Indeed, at the end of the day, most of the running time is about some average guy cleaning some toilets in Tokyo (by the way, the public toilets there are actually quite impressive), listening to some vintage cassettes and reading some cheap books and that’s pretty much it. You don’t get to know him that much. How did he end up living like this? Who was he actually? Above all, the question I kept repeating myself was, was he actually happy? Indeed, he had created his own bubble and I have to admit that he seems to be quite content but setting such strict constraints to yourself and cutting all bridges with any people who knew you, is it really the answer? But then, and that’s probably the genius of this movie, are we much happier in our more conventional way of life, full of consumerism, meaningless chats and technological noise? I probably had a hard time to accept his choice because a part of myself is really inclined to follow a similar path but I wouldn’t last for long because another part of myself forces me to stay in touch with other people. Eventually, I strongly believed that the main character was the happiest not when he managed to strictly follow his Zen lifestyle but when some outsider did manage to actually disrupt it. Anyway, to conclude, the damned thing was definitely pretty good though and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested to see Win Wenders making a nice come-back.