The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick

press release:

THE GOALIE’S ANXIETY AT THE PENALTY KICK (DIE ANGST DES TORMANNS BEIM ELFMETER): West Germany | 1971 | DCP | 100 min. | German with English subtitles

Director: Wim Wenders; Cast: Arthur Brauss, Erika Pluhar, Kai Fischer

Wenders’ second feature is an unconventional suspense film chronicling the day to day activities of soccer goalie/sociopath Josef Bloch (Brauss) as he wanders around Vienna after being ejected from a game. With a matter-of-fact style that matches the protagonist’s demeanor to a T, Wenders and author Peter Handke weave a deeply unsettling tale of random incidents, photographed and performed with precise and somehow terrifying passivity. Goalie plays with the elements of a standard Hitchcockian thriller, unfolding simultaneously as verité and fever dream.

Along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders completes the triumvirate of internationally acclaimed filmmakers that emerged in the New German Cinema movement of the 1970s. The titles selected for this retrospective series represent Wenders’ very best movies from the 70s and 80s. Many of the selections reveal Wenders’ particular talent in finding new kinds of “road movies” that feature his protagonists traveling through multiple cities and sometimes across continents.