This blog post examines how the boundary between fiction and documentary has been blurred in Wim Wenders’ films, focusing on his perspective and the spirit of the times. It questions the possibilities of cinema by exploring both the tradition of New German Cinema and his documentary work.
When discussing the relationship between fiction and documentary, the films of the New German Cinema cannot be overlooked. Between the 1960s and 1970s, the German film industry gradually lost its vitality amid a historical rupture: the massive import of American films, the decline of Expressionist cinema, and the rise of Nazism. In 1962, 26 young filmmakers from the German film industry, having lost their national identity, declared at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival, “The Father’s Film Is Dead.” This declaration signaled the birth of a new cinema that broke away from the studio system and Hollywood-style film grammar that had dominated Germany until the 1960s. It expressed a deep concern for the times and society, and an intense exploration of the human psyche. The approach they chose was to actively embrace the observational and objective gaze of documentary, a strong sense of realism, and the narrative structure of the road movie.
Among several directors, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant” depicts the love between a foreign worker and a German cleaning lady. What is noteworthy here is that the lovers are not from the upper class but the poor, and the film directly addresses love between a person of color and a German. Their love ultimately remains unfulfilled due to the gaze of those around them and social pressure. The reason this film is regarded as a masterpiece of New German Cinema lies precisely in its handling of ‘the gaze’.
After World War II, discrimination against people of color in German society had reached its peak, and the wealth gap was also severe. The film presents the social gaze surrounding these characters as if observing them objectively. It creates the impression that only the camera exists beside the characters, with no artificial fiction intervening. Consequently, the images captured by the camera evoke discomfort in the audience. This discomfort is not a failure of direction but rather the achievement of a documentary-like attitude that forces viewers to stare directly at reality.
The influence of this documentary-like form, first attempted in New German Cinema, was realized in a fully developed form in the late 1980s and 1990s through Percy Adlon’s “Baghdad Cafe.” This film combines the fictionality and fantasy of narrative cinema with the observational gaze of documentary to explore the humanism of marginalized groups. A German woman arrives at a desert cafe that doesn’t sell coffee, carrying a thermos. Through her, the crumbling cafe gradually regains its vitality and energy. The process of Jasmine and Brenda’s relationship forming and evolving is depicted wittily yet objectively, mediated through the gaze of the husband who left home.
If “Anxiety Eats the Soul” and “Bagdad Cafe” partially explored the influence of documentary on narrative film, Wim Wenders’ films demonstrate how this tendency permeates his entire cinematic world. Through “Wings of Desire,” Wenders uses the device of an angel’s gaze to show German citizens living apathetic, tragic lives exactly as they are. Unadorned realism and immediacy permeate the entire film, maintained through an attitude closer to observation than dramatic artifice. Furthermore, his road movie trilogy—*Alice in the Cities*, *The Wrong Move*, and *Kings of the Road*—realistically captures the problems of German youth who have lost their spiritual roots.
Wim Wenders is also particularly well-known for his recent documentary works such as Pina, Buena Vista Social Club, and Soul of a Man. While I’ve mentioned Wim Wenders in previous documentary assignments, Buena Vista Social Club clearly reveals him as a director with deep respect and special affection for music. Meanwhile, “The Million Dollar Hotel,” seemingly almost unrelated to documentary elements, also confirms that his feature film directing skills are by no means limited to documentaries.
“Paris, Texas” depicts the journey of protagonist Travis and his son Hunter as they search for their mother. This work features minimal dialogue and lacks prominent dramatic progression. Yet, even years after seeing it, I still find myself unable to shake off its lingering resonance. Whether the director’s intent is explicitly clear or not, the road Travis travels, the people he encounters along the way, and the fleeting landscapes all capture a profoundly desolate sentiment within the frame. A sense of desolation and solitude pervades the entire film. The unstable father-son relationship, marked by the mother’s absence, and the journey to find his wife, borrow the observational and poetic form of documentary. This makes it seem as if the camera is simply following the characters, recording their actions as they happen.
This element reaches its climax in the moment Travis finally locates his wife and faces her. Separated by a translucent glass wall, the wife continues her story without seeing Travis, while only Travis stares at her one-sidedly. Travis and the audience know the immoral reality she faces, yet she herself remains unaware of it. Travis watches his wife in silence, unable to reveal his presence, and the camera, in turn, watches Travis. It adds no emotional excess, no dramatic device. It simply observes the situation as it is and silently presents it to the audience.
Thus, in Wim Wenders’ films, the boundary between documentary and feature film seems almost nonexistent. Just as his life does, his films are not fixed to any particular form. Sometimes he incorporates documentary elements into narrative films, and in other cases, he adds narrative filmmaking techniques to documentaries. He has constantly revealed and expanded the ambiguous boundary between the two genres. Yet one thing is clear: his films never distort the spirit of the present era. He neither arranges time in reverse nor leaps excessively. He shows the present we live in, and the era Wim Wenders breathes, exactly as it is. Whether documentary or feature film, this attitude remains consistent.
Documentary has been an important form that complements and overcomes the limitations of feature film, presenting audiences with new perspectives. Simultaneously, it represents one possible alternative for the future of cinema. And for someone like Wim Wenders, it has already become part of life itself. I too aspire to be a filmmaker who creates movies that confront the problems of reality head-on, unbound by the boundaries between feature film and documentary. This desire becomes clear once again through this writing.
