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Blessed be the contrarian By LEAH McLAREN Wim Wenders sits in the lounge at the InterContinental Hotel in Toronto looking just like a New Yorker magazine caricature of a European art-film director. Snazzily dressed in roughed-up jeans, a blazer and old-school Adidas, he wears his grey hair carefully tousled above his trademark black-framed glasses. But don't let the fashion-forward getup mislead you: Wenders's latest film, Land of Plenty, which he is at the Toronto International Film Festival to promote, is anything but avant-garde. A moving portrait of Los Angeles life two years after the World Trade Centre attacks, Land of Plenty tells the story of an idealistic young missionary named Lana (Michelle Williams, formerly of Dawson's Creek) who is seeking out her estranged Uncle Paul (John Diehl), a Vietnam veteran and self-appointed homeland-security officer. It's the kind of accessible, straightforward narrative most cineastes would not immediately identify with Wenders, a German-born director who made his name internationally with the spiritual and surreal fairy tale, Wings of Desire. "This is a character-driven film, and in order to make people identify fully with a character you have to stay in a traditional narrative," he says. "I needed a linear narrative to say what I needed to say in this film." Not surprisingly, Wenders, 59, has a great deal he needs to say. After living as a U.S. resident in Los Angeles for the past eight years, he is in the midst of packing up and moving to New York. He is passionate about his adopted country as only someone who has ended up in a place out of choice, rather than accident, can be. He begins our conversation by talking about the characters in his film -- before almost immediately moving on to the state of the nation. "Lana has a very innocent, almost childlike faith in God and love and being in love and the power of love, whereas Paul is not really a spiritual person. You might say his religion is America," says Wenders. "And America over the last few years has become very similar, in that nationalism has become a kind of religion. It's almost like Christianity these days can only become defined by certain right-wing politics. "For me as a Christian, it's really revolting, and it's one of the reasons I made this film: I wanted to show that as a Christian you have to have different priorities. As a Christian, the idea of a pre-emptive war was out of the question. As a Christian, you have to be in solidarity with the poor and the exploited, and I didn't really see that in America any more. In the Bush administration some of the most basic Christian values have been perverted." In spite of critical applause and a warm audience response at both the Venice and Toronto festivals, Land of Plenty remains without a North American buyer -- a frustrating state of affairs for an acclaimed director like Wenders. With Land of Plenty, Wenders feels the corporate hesitation has been somewhat politically motivated. "I've heard from many American buyers who have seen it here, and they're all very insecure how to market it. Apparently the Christian message and the liberal message are considered incompatible. I've been told that this is a big marketing issue. Christian ideas are so occupied by the right wing in America that they don't know what to do with it." The fact that a Christian audience and a politically liberal audience are seen as being mutually exclusive in today's America is the kind of revelation that drives Wenders nuts, both as an artist and a Christian. "It left me a little speechless," he says. "It seems to me to be an even better reason to show the film." And make no mistake, this is a film that deserves to be shown. Gorgeously photographed and full of subtly moving performances, Land of Plenty conveys a compassionate message, but never in a way that overshadows story or character. Brought up in a conservative Catholic household in Germany, Wenders later left the fold to explore Asian religions in the seventies and eighties. He has since returned to his faith, as a Protestant, and attends a liberal Presbyterian church. "But it doesn't really mean anything," he explains of his church-going. "I really have a problem with organized religion as such, and Christianity when it takes its own organization too seriously. As soon as it turns fundamentalist and rigid and full of dogma, I just shudder." Rather than charm (which is a dime a bucketful at any film festival), Wenders radiates a certain calm and kindness. He is well known for his qualities as a mentor, and mentions with pleasure several times that young people have had a particularly good response to his latest film. His entire crew on Land of Plenty consisted of beginners. No one had worked on a feature film before, right down to the director of photography, the art director and the score composer. "I didn't want to make a movie about a young 20-year-old woman like Lana and surround her by grumpy old men," says the director, with a rare chuckle. In a legendary act of Christian kindness and mentorship, Wenders famously gave away the $10,000 prize he received for Wings of Desire at Montreal's 1987 Festival of New Cinema to a much younger Atom Egoyan, who had received an honourable mention for Family Viewing. The gesture was the beginning of an enduring friendship between the two filmmakers. Wenders recalls the end of the story: "I went back to Montreal the next year and, believe it or not, Atom won the prize. I was in the audience and he looked at me and had the cheque in hand and he realized he couldn't do any other thing, and he gave it to the runner up." After the interview, as I am leaving the lounge, a young man with a European accent approaches me. "Was that Wim Wenders you were just talking to?" he asks in a reverential tone. "Is he still here?" I tell him it was indeed, and turn to where the director had been
just a moment before -- but he is gone. "Ah," says the
young man. "He slipped away, just like an angel."
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