Wim Wenders was always the most cerebral, the most cinematic of the three Giants of New German cinema (albeit Giants enough to bear favourable comparison even to cinematic Giants-For All-Ages such as Fritz Lang, and FW Murnau). In his hands, even a work so clearly of its maker as Ripley's Game became a perhaps even greater work, even more clearly of its maker such as The American Friend was, or as the Sam Shephard-scripted Paris, Texas was. And perhaps, too, this adaptation of a German bestseller likely is.
This film, despite the directors acknowledgements of the influence of Alfred Hitchcock - evident throughout - is A Masterpiece of control and content - admirable in a mature work by an established director, astonishing as a feature debut.
The title is relevant only in a later, casual, conversation the eponymous character has with a provincial policeman, where the policeman innocently spills out his m.o. when confronted by a criminal, but such is the nature of this study that we can't immediately be sure the psychopath is taking everything in. The murder itself isn't even shown in its grisly intensity, merely its foreplay and aftermath. And there's nothing to forewarn us of the killer's intentions: no taunting, no leering looks, no stalkings. (I saw parallels in the murder scene with a similar scene in Hitchcock's underrated 'Frenzy', but only in the way it was shot, and the aforementioned foreplay).
His scanning of every subsequent news report might suggest he's worried, that the noose is tightening around him. But his immediately subsequent actions suggest otherwise. Like the prototype psychopath, compassion is conspicuous by its absence from his every thought and action. But yet, in best cinematic tradition, what 'he' doesn't know is that we can see his every action, can scrutinise his every thought. Can condemn him for his indifference.
Only by giving every frame of this masterly film your full attention will you get to truly 'enjoy' its final frame.
