The American Friend somehow manages to coalesce the inner psychological turmoil of the main character – a German maker of picture-frames recently given a terminal diagnosis – with the gritty urban landscape of 1970’s Hamburg and other cities.
It’s hard to think of a film that so effectively marries the inner mind with the the outer urban environment in such a tight way as Wim Wenders achieves here.
Both the inner and outer worlds depicted in the film seem to be decaying, falling apart at the seams. The problem for Jonathan and the family he supports however, is that decaying cities can be regenerated, whereas decaying bodies – not so much.

There’s much more to this story than terminal decay however. Wenders is a filmmaker inherently aware of the power of spirit and that’s hardly more apparent than in this beautiful piece of work, where he endows the light in every scene with a spiritual majesty that helps to reinforce the fact that there is always a little more to reality than material decay.

P.S. thanks for introducing me to the Old Elbe Tunnel which is cute A.F.