http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com/There isn't too much to like about Wim Wenders' films over the last twenty years. There have been a few bright spots, but for the most part, Wenders' obsession with America has gotten the worst of him. In his prime, few directors since Antonioni were as adept at depicting inner monologues through silence. Wenders' characters were complicated men of few words.Over time Wenders love affair with America somehow convinced him that the 'less is more' approach was failing. Wenders threw his greatest strength out the door and substituted it with what would become, over time and many films, his achilles heel: big ideas.The characters in Land of Plenty aren't really individual people, they are ideas. These characters represent something grander, something excruciatingly ambitious: the American conscience. Lofty goals of this sort often end up as preachy and pretentious and LOP's screenplay is just that. Shot on the cheap, on digital video, LOP feels like noble idea rushed into production without the benefit of enough revisions to weed out the heavy handedness. Films concerned with the traumatic effects of 9/11 are compelled to be both profound and reverential, the problem is profound and reverential seldom make for a worthwhile movie going experience. If there was a rating system based on the number of American flags displayed in a movie, LOP would score full points, as it is, LOP rates very low.

This is a sort of anti-Wenders film. While most of his films are uplifting, beautiful and spiritual, _Land of Plenty_ is a brutal and unpleasant exposé of American paranoia. It's very well done, and it's frighteningly accurate. Still, I can't imagine any Americans will enjoy watching it.If you're in denial, then you will be offended by this movie (like most of the negative reviewers here). So don't bother.If you're familiar with the paranoia and bigotry that has enveloped this country then this movie will upset you, just as if you had a big wart on your nose, and someone made a film about it. So don't bother.I believe the only people who could possibly enjoy this film are objective (non-American) viewers who do not feel the shame that this movie exposes.I'm rating this film an 8 because it was well done, but I can't recommend it to anyone. It was just too excruciating for me (as it should be for all Americans who share the burden of what our country has turned into). Another film which falls into this category is _House of Sand and Fog_ which one critic called "the feel-bad movie of the year".This movie made me feel like crap. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch _Lisbon Story_ 1000 times and try to recover from this.

I think with 10/10 this movie is actually rated too high normally i'd give it a 8 or 9/10. But let me tell you why i didn't: At the time when this movie came to the cinemas in Germany, the anti-American atmosphere that broke off in the after-math of the decision of the German chancellor Schroeder, that German troops won't take part in the Iraq War (a good decision as far as I'm concerned), reached a peak. People arguing against that, often stressed the historical role of the American liberators of Germany and stuff. That's all true but it doesn't say much to somebody like me, who's in his twenties. Nevertheless I think there are reasons to have a more complex picture of America. And this movie actually tries to show something of this as well. It also tells an American story and analyzes the American society from the point of somebody (Wim Wenders) who went to America to find something better than in Germany. He found it. Then became realistic about it, and found that there isn't a perfect place on earth, and America definitely isn't. And so this is also a movie of a personal picture of America after 09/11. And at this very special moment it was also a very political movie in Germany, even if I have to confess few people saw it like this...

The End of Violence and certainly the Million Dollar hotel hinted at the idea the Wenders has lost his vision, his ability to tell compelling stories through a map of the moving picture. The Land of Plenty seals the coffin, I'm afraid, by being a vastly unimaginative, obviously sentimental and cliché'd film. The characters are entirely flat and stereotyped, the writing, plot and direction are amateurish, at best. For the first time in quite a while, I was impatient for the film to end so I could get on with my life. The war-torn delirium of the uncle, the patriotic abstract gazing at the sky at the conclusion...it all just struck me as being so simple and pathetic, hardly the work of a filmmaker who once made some compelling magic on screen. What happened? The days of experimentation, perceptive writing and interesting filming possibilities are long behind him, I'm afraid. Let's hope he finds his inspiration again... At the Toronto film festival, which is where I saw the film, Wenders was there to introduce it. Completely lacking in humility, he offered us the following: "I hope...no, wait...I KNOW you're going to enjoy the next two hours." I'm afraid he couldn't be more wrong...