Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter

With this film, Wenders was not yet able to grasp the aimlessness of the "existential" situation as he did in his later films from the 70s, although he (presumably) attempted to do so here. The main character, a soccer goalkeeper (do not be misled by the genre stated here on FilmBooster or on IMDB because this film is definitely not a "sports" film), appears to be involved in a criminal plot at first glance, and later the film exhibits certain signs of the detective genre. Yet all of this is merely an intentional game with the viewer - the built-up "tension" finds its release in a surprising ending, which retrospectively permeates and explains the entire film: In the absolute lack of explanation for the motivation behind the protagonist’s actions and even the mere indication of his future destiny, we witness a metaphor for the radical lack of anchoring of a person to the world, an infinite field of possibilities that unfold before him but that he can never comprehend and choose with certainty (the true dilemma of a goalkeeper facing a penalty shot), and above all, in the context of the behavior of the main character as a whole, the incomprehensibility and unbridgeable otherness of human actions towards the Second Person, which is the viewer in this case. (05.02.2015)