The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick

Adapted from a novel by Nobel Prize winner Peter Handke, Wim Wenders’s first theatrical feature crosses Hitchcock with Kafka for an arresting study of existential ennui, violence, and the lure of American culture in postwar Europe. After he is ejected from a game in Vienna, unsettlingly disaffected soccer goalie Joseph Bloch (Arthur Brauss) wanders aimlessly through the city, seemingly detached from everything around him—until an encounter with a cinema cashier (Erika Pluhar) takes a dark turn. Working with cinematographer Robby Müller and editor Peter Przygodda, Wenders assembled a collaborative team that would define his work for years.