Land of Plenty | Review

Wenders goes off on a Wim with 9/11 script.

Following in the vogue of filmmakers commenting on post 9/11 America, German director Wim Wenders’ opens up a new door – focusing much of his text on the paranoia that has been infused with national terrorist alert system and other government propaganda. Digitally-filmed, Land of Plenty makes a point about capturing the dizzyingly effects of the fear and obsession has on an already obsessed society – Wenders points out that when such sicknesses are left untreated, it spreads and becomes a social disease. Featured as two merging parallel stories – Lana (Michelle Williams) is a missionary coming back to a land in need of healing and trying to hook up with a long lost uncle (John Diehl). She has lost touch with an uncle – who has been out of touch with reality. A Vietnam vet whose mental health was affected by the chemicals in a jungle abroad, has complete distrust in the government which thus leads him upon a hallucinatory mission to stop terrorist activity and the further production of other chemical bombs. With a docu-drama texture, Wenders filters out the cityscape of Los Angeles, in favor for some of the city’s more impoverished areas – you’d think that education equals knowledge, but the email-friendly Williams’ character seems totally unaware of the paranoia in her uncle. Poorly constructed characters make this an unbearable watch – Wenders establishes early on that the enemy is our own imaginer, unfortunately waiting until the end of the film to see the protagonist figure it out on his own becomes an unbearably long ride for the viewer. Land of Plenty has very little to offer in this massive debate about what is wrong with American values.

Rating 1.5 stars