Faraway, So Close!

In Faraway, So Close we watch a city being reborn, an angel trapped in melodrama and a dream dying. All are moving. [23 Dec 1993, p.10N]

Any movie featuring cameos ranging from Lou Reed to Mikhail Gorbachev has its heart in the right place. That heart is what sustains it; though long and uneven, occasionally sentimental and portentous in its message, Faraway, So Close comes close enough to greatness. [23 Dec 1993, p.29]

It's amusing, but also rather silly - offering still more evidence that Wenders seems to have seen a few hundred Hollywood genre pics too many. [30 Dec 1993, p.4D]

Unlike its predecessor, this is not a light, mystical romance, but a somewhat muddled narrative that ends up resembling an offbeat action/adventure movie. It's still a film about issues -- humanity, the soul, time, and Nazism -- but it lacks many of the "art" aspect of Wings, relying more on straightforward storytelling.

There are moments of exceptional sweetness in Faraway, So Close, and Jurgen Jurges' photography is fine, though not as indelible as Henri Alekan's work in "Wings of Desire." But the film feels both too long and too truncated, with plot twists left dangling in the wind. [04 Feb 1994, p.15]

Overlong and ultra-slow, this meditation on the sad state of things will tax the patience of even dedicated Wenders fans.

The movie meanders for two and a half hours, has glaring continuity gaps, and repeatedly confuses self-consciousness with irony, sincerity with significance. There are grace notes here, but Wenders' ambitions seem far, far away.