IN THE WHITE CITY Movie Review

Dans la Ville Blanche

Swiss director Alain Tanner directed this absorbing and visually intoxicating dream of a movie about a sailor (Bruno Ganz of Wings of Desire) who jumps ship in Lisbon, where he blends into the hallucinatory landscapes and alleyways of the hauntingly beautiful “white city.” Ganz becomes sexually involved with a waitress, loses most of his money, and takes 8mm home movies of his new surroundings to send home to his wife (those movies taken by Ganz—which we see—are contrasted eerily with the “real” images that constitute the film itself).What's remarkable here is the tight grip that Tanner maintains on his simple story, an oft-told tale that's tough to do on film because most of the “action” is happening in the protagonist's head. Nevertheless, the film has the structure and feel of an adventure story, and you can't really take your eyes off it. Much of the film's success is due to the beguiling, intuitive performance of Bruno Ganz; but Tanner also pulls off something else exciting: He and his cinematographer have found a languid cinematic equivalent for the feeling of actually being a stranger in a strange land—a cosmic tourist, in a sense—and the textures, the heat, and the labyrinthine streets of Lisbon seem to surround us in a way that's eerily transporting, as well as liberating.

NEXT STOP … Messidor, The Sheltering Sky, Kings of the Road

1983 108m/C PT SI Bruno Ganz,Teresa Madruga, Julia Vonderlinn, Jose Carvalho; D: Alain Tanner; W: Alain Tanner; C: Acacio De Almeida; M: Jean-Luc Barbier. VHS NYF