Twelfth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

In my paper, I will argue that Wim Wenders’s recent films provide an exciting framework to think in new ways about intercultural dialogue. Starting with Lisbon’s Story in 1994, Wenders starts making films that very consciously address the necessity of thinking beyond the limits of generic and national borders. At the same time as he constructs his film as both a love story and a visual essay on the power of cinema, Wenders reflects on the possibilities offered by a borderless and unified European space that makes it possible to think and express ourselves in multiple languages: German, French, English, Portuguese. In subsequent films, he continues to think about the connections between multiple spoken languages and new visual languages. In Pina (2012), he presents Pina Bausch’s dance company as an international group who pays homage to their mentor in their native language while all speaking the common bodily language of contemporary dance. He does so by introducing 3D cinema as a new way of accessing universal emotions and ideas. In Inventing Peace: A Dialogue on Perception, a recent book co-written with the philosopher Mary Zournazi, Wenders theorizes a new visual language of peace, inspired by the films of the Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, and meant to redefine how we engage with others in our own communities. In analyzing Wenders’s films and writings, I attempt to show that intercultural dialogue can never be separated from the modes of expression that enable it.