Kings of the Road

Director: Wim Wenders

1976 / 175min / DCP

Two years after Kraftwerk’s Autobahn gave Germany’s highways a mythology to compete with those of the US, Wenders produced his country’s ultimate road movie, a rapturously melancholy travelog in black-and-white widescreen that rides along with a projection booth mechanic (Rüdiger Vogler) and his depressive hitchhiker (Hanns Zischler) as the former goes about his rounds servicing neglected cinemas on the western side of the East German border. Almost entirely unscripted and episodic in nature, the short-on-dialogue Kings of the Road conveys ineffable emotions through the luminous loveliness of Müller’s images.

Part of Robby Müller: Remain in Light