In my review of "Room 666", a Wim Wenders documentary where he asked to several film directors at Cannes about the future of movies, I said I was expecting for a sequel for the movie where the directors interviewed to take a look back and see how their opinions were right or different from what they thought or expected the cinema experience would be in the years to come. Barely I knew the sequel already existed though a lot different than I hoped for. Wenders is the main figure now and he's the one looking back at the opinions his fellow filmmakers Antonioni, Fassbinder, Godard, Spielberg, Herzog and Ana Carolina gave in 1982 trying to establish a panorama of what they got it right and what they overlooked at the time as for our current film days.
26 years later, Wenders is under the direction of Gustavo Spolidoro, who directed and edited the film here in Brazil and he over-imposes images from the 1982 film with this one, shooting Wenders in a Porto Alegre hotel, a room that seems structured almost in the same way the Cannes hotel were, making the other directors as if part of the recent experience in ghost-like manners. As for the opinions, Wenders talk about the pessimistic moods they were while reflecting the future of movies then, the technologies that came in the period (VHS and home videos taking over cinema space) at the same time he praises technology and how it was possible for cinema to survive with those technologies, making bridges instead of walls - VHS, DVD, digital cameras, MTV and the cinema perfected itself with their language, quality and use.
As usual he's a fascinating talker (I loved his tribute to Antonioni, his friend, right at the beginning) and it's very interesting to see the comparison he makes between medias, their evolution and how hopeful he is that cinema isn't a dying thing, it'll evolve with the new available sources and technologies - and I fully agree with that. That was in 2008 when streaming services weren't a thing; films on YouTube were either short films or divided in 12 segments of 10 minutes each; crowd-funding productions through social medias were crazy ideas; Netflix and Amazon productions were only in dreams and now Hollywood is running faster to catch up with them and gracefully allow them into the mix - the awards are coming to them because the level of quality is beyond the studio system. I'm pointing this out because now I'm hoping for a third discussion about the future of movies..."where can we go from now?" But this time I want Wenders or Spolidoro calling our new wave of directors and some classic monsters filmmakers to share their views on cinema.
I firmly believe this media will go on for some time. The quality is lost, all the greatest stories were already told and remakes are a trend but somehow there's always something brand new, worth seeing and that makes us rush ourselves to a great theater and see it. Creativity hasn't died yet and neither the movies. This supreme art will stand the test of time despite half of its early humble beginnings had already vanished from view. As for this film, it's a testament of times, a pure dialogue between different eras and to analyze how prophetic filmmakers can be or how wrong they could be. Great job. 8/10
