The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
Director: Wim Wenders
Year Released: 1972
Rating: 2.5
Goalkeeper Bloch (Arthur Brauss) lets in an easy score, leaves the game and goes to town, watches a few movies, sleeps with the ticket counter girl, strangles her to death, travels around some more, drinks beer, reconnects with an old girlfriend, gets into a fight and eventually goes to watch a match (this time as a spectator). Early Wenders feature is more than a little glib and roughly assembled (there are too many quick, often jarring cuts) but it does establish one major Wenders theme, that of alienation from the outside world and even one's self (Bloch remains an enigma to the audience and he is never punished for his crime, unlike Camus' Meursault): if nothing else, it successfully conveys this sense of eerie 'otherness,' which might be enough for some. In 1970's West Germany, was "you look like a painted cow" a good come-on line?
