Excerpt from TimeOut located HERE

Image :    NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

First and foremost all three films in Criterion's Blu-ray package of Wim Wenders: The Road Trilogy are from new, restored 4K digital transfers of all three films, commissioned by the Wim Wenders Foundation and supervised by director Wim Wenders.

Alice in the Cities arrives on Criterion Blu-ray in 1080P. It is on a dual-layered disc with a very high bitrate. Its dominant feature is the heavy film textures.  Alice in the Cities was shot on 16mm black and white negative in the summer of 1973. For 15 years all copies in circulation worldwide were made from the original negative. When a 35mm dupe negative was finally made in 1988 the original material was already damaged by countless scratches, vertical lines and cracks. The digital restoration was done in 2014. For this purpose, the original negative was scanned in a resolution of 4K using the wetgate method and retouched and color-corrected in a resolution of 2K. Individual sequences that were too heavily damaged in the original 16mm negative were replaced with sections from the 35mm dupe negative. Although shot in the 1,37:1 aspect ratio commissioned by WDR, Wim Wenders and his cameraman Robby Muller composed the shots for the widescreen 1.66: format during the shooting. At the director's request, the film was also screened in cinemas as such. In the course of its digital restoration, Alice in the Cities was now finally framed in this preferred format. All work was carried out at ARRI Film & TV Services Berlin. It looks as good as it ever will for digital consumption.

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alice in the Cities' audio is transferred in a linear PCM mono track at 1152 kbps in the original German-language. This lossless transfer is from a restored source and is clean and consistent but at the mercy of the original production. The score is credited to 'Can' or 'The Can' (notable soundtrack group with music in PTA's Inherent Vice performing "Vitamin C" and "Soup", in Morvern Callar performing "I Want More", "Fragrance" and "Spoon" , in Anh Hung Tran's Norwegian Wood, and in Samuel Fuller's Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street). There are optional English subtitles and my Oppo has identified it as being a region 'A'-locked.

Extras :

 

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The Film (Wrong Move):

With depth and style, Wim Wenders updates a late-eighteenth-century novel by Goethe, transposing it to 1970s West Germany and giving us the story of an aimless writer (Rüdiger Vogler) who leaves his hometown to find himself and winds up befriending a group of other travelers. Seeking inspiration to help him escape his creative funk, he instead discovers the limits of attempts to refashion one’s identity. One of the director’s least seen but earthiest and most devastating soul searches, Wrong Move features standout supporting performances from New German Cinema regulars Hanna Schygulla and Peter Kern and, in her first film appearance, Nastassja Kinski.

***

Wenders regular Rüdiger Volger is Wilhelm, a moody, alienated would-be writer who whimsically leaves home and travels across Germany (and vertically, from the Rhine to the Zugspitze mountain peak), idly searching for a moment when he might "become." He never comes close, instead falling in with an actress (Hanna Schygulla), an itinerant father and daughter (Hans Christian Blech and an occasionally nude fourteen-year-old Nastassja Kinski), and a portly poet wannabe (Peter Kern). The five wander, dawdle, drive, encounter a suicidal industrialist, bore each other with recounted dreams, and end up back in the city, their collective "journey" — the aim of which was never articulated — dissolving into stasis and separation.

Excerpt from The Village Voice located HERE

 

Image :    NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

We get a similar deal to the Alice in the Cities disc with a dual-layered transfer - and a max'ed out bitrate. The overall image on Blu-ray is improved from the DVD I had in The Wim Wenders Collection Volume 2 reviewed HERE. Wrong Move was shot in the fall of 1974 based on a screenplay by Peter Handke, who loosely adapted Goethe's novel "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship". The film begins by the North Sea, in Gluckstadt, travels all across Germany and ends on its highest and most southern peak, the Zugspitze. The digital restoration of Wrong Move was done in 2015. For this purpose, the original 35mm color negative film was scanned, retouched and color-corrected in a resolution of 4K. All work was carried out at ARRI Media. It looks consistent and strong with texture and depth - colors are tight. I can't imagine it will ever look better for digital.

 

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio :

For Wrong Move we get a healthy DTS-HD Master 5.1 surround at 3194 kbps (24-bit) in the original German-language. It handles the film's requirements with relative ease adding impressive depth when necessary. The score is by Jürgen Knieper (Wim Wender's Wings of Desire and The American Friend as well as the Tim Hunter's The River's Edge.) and sounds strong via the lossless with some seething depth and notable crispness. There are optional English subtitles offered and my Oppo has identified it as being a region 'A'-locked.

 

Extras :

This film offers another audio commentary featuring Wenders - this time in English - and there are new interview with Wenders, directed and conducted by filmmaker Michael Almereyda in a lengthy hour+ piece entitled Three For the Road. There are also 22-minutes of new interviews with actors Rüdiger Vogler and Lisa Kreuzer and 4-minutes of Super 8 footage from the film’s production shot during the making of Wrong Move. It is silent but presented here with the music from Jürgen Knieper's score for the film.

 

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The Film (Kings of the Road):

A roving film projector repairman (Rüdiger Vogler) saves the life of a depressed psychologist (Hanns Zischler) who has driven his Volkswagen into a river, and they end up on the road together, traveling from one rural German movie theater to another.

***

Forget plot - Kings of the Road has neither a conventional beginning nor end to speak of - Wenders instead finding interest in the changing relationship between two men as they travel the roads along the East/West German border. As Bruno (the superb Rudiger Vogler), a travelling projection engineer, and Robert (Hans Zischler), recently dumped by his girlfriend, roam the country via a succession of declining village cinemas Wenders creates a wonderfully honest picture of the growing bonds between them: the eventual realisation that they have grown overly familiar with each other, and their subsequent parting of ways.

Robert and Bruno's epic journey is permeated with signs of the cultural invasion of Europe by Americana: posters, adverts and most obviously, rock n' roll, a personal obsession of the director, and coasts on with an incredible and often uplifting sense of freedom. Wenders' visually stunning organisation of landscape and use of location is complemented by some glorious black and white photography and a great soundtrack. Like all Wenders' best movies Kings of the Road leaves you feeling that you've really seen some-thing.

Excerpt from EUFS.org located HERE

Image :    NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

Kings of the Road on Blu-ray from Criterion has the benefit of a painstaking restoration and the almost 3-hour film is on the dual-layered disc with a supportive bitrate. Kings of the Road was shot on 35mm Orwo b/w negative film in 1975. The film had its world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1976. The digital restoration of Kings of the Road was done in 2014. For this purpose, the original negative was scanned, retouched and color-corrected in a resolution of 4K. The film material exhibited serious wear and tear in individual shots and the film base had shrunk over the years. This required intensive retouching and stabilization, which proved to be particularly challenging due to the length of the film. All work was carried out at ARRI Media & TV Services in Berlin. The 1080P transfer looks very film-like and textured with pleasing contrast. fans should appreciate the  lengths that the restoration and robust technical transfer have accomplished.

 

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

 

 

Commentary subtitle sample

 

 

 

 

 

 

The audio is another imposing DTS-HD Master 5.1 surround at at healthy 3354 kbps (24-bit). There are separations that seem deftly, and subtly, carried to the rear channels and depth is apparent if rarely utilized. The score is by Axel Linstädt who is now CEO in the music department of the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation, Munich, Germany. The film's subtle background music sounds flawless in the lossless. There are optional English subtitles offered and my Oppo has identified it as being a region 'A'-locked.

Extras :

NOTE: The package also contains a book featuring essays on the films by Almereyda, filmmaker Allison Anders, author James Robison, and critic Nick Roddick.

BOTTOM LINE:
I don't think this is pre-mature ranking this the Blu-ray package of the entire 2016 year. Criterion's Wim Wenders: The Road Trilogy is an essential containing three important, restored, films by the director with an abundance of supplements including Wenders' own commentaries. This is brilliant - one of the most desirable sets I have seen in a very long time. This Criterion Blu-ray has our highest recommendation! Fans will be thrilled with this package. Pure cinematic gold in restored 4K digital transfers! 

Gary Tooze

April 28th, 2016

Alice in the Cities is coming to Blu-ray in the UK from Curzons in August, 2022:     As is King of the Road:

 

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