The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty Kick

"Wenders' style here has a remarkably charged quality: every frame haunts you for goddam weeks" Time Out.

Wim Wenders' debut feature is a couple of hours in the life of an archetypally alienated "existential" hero. Goalkeeper Josef Bloch is sent off during a game for foul play. He spends the night with a cinema cashier. Then in the morning, he strangles her. Bloch drives to the country, to a former girlfriend's place, where he waits for the police to close in on him.

Like in many of Wenders' films, the cultural influence of America in post-war West Germany is felt through the rich vein of movie and music references "everything from Hitchcock to 'Wimaway'".

Germany | German | 1971 | 100 mins