Don't Come Knocking (2005)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Another brilliant story, beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, fantastic soundtrack of a film that totally escaped my radar out here in the suburbs until tonight, thanks to some meandering on IMDb, I came across it. Thank you Sam Shepard for a wonderfully told story driven film. Thank you Wim Wenders for making it. And thanks to all the rest of the cast and crew who were a part of it. When I look at the gross for this movie, and the gross for this summers biggest "blockbuster", it saddens me. Don't be afraid to expand your horizons a bit American movie going public. You will be amazed at what all you have missed if you stick merely to the current big movie. Last but never, ever least thanks to T Bone Burnett for another amazing soundtrack. A wonderful evening for this movie lover.

Wim Wenders collaborated with Sam Shepard two decades ago on "Paris, Texas". That film starred Harry Dean Stanton as Travis, an elderly man who travels from Texas to Los Angeles in the hopes of reconciling with both his estranged son and ex-wife. After failing to atone for his obsessively jealous, violent past, Travis disappears into the desert from which he came."Don't Come Knocking" tells virtually the same tale. Also written by Shepard, it finds Shepard playing an ageing actor who abandons the set of his latest western in order to visit his mother in the small town of Butte, Montana. Once there he attempts to reconcile with his two illegitimate children, and the waitress who gave birth to one. Again bookended by the desert, the film charts a very broad metaphorical journey out of a forlorn Old West - with its preponderance for sex, violent masculinity and philandery - and into the town of Butte. Butte's portrayed as a place in which time stands still, its inhabitants living in the wreckage of Shepard's last visit.The film's different from "Paris, Texas" in minor ways. Shepard's naive and seemingly less guilt-stricken than Travis was in "Texas". Meanwhile, the family he's left behind seem to be coping perfectly fine without him. They're stronger, less vulnerable and far less bitter than their counterparts in "Texas". Indeed, they all eventually forgive and pity Shepard. And while Travis seemed consigned to a life of loneliness, and even death, Shepard's given a quasi heroic ending, waving a cowboy's hat and riding a horse off into the sunset while a film crew looks on. Caccooned in the past, he's less immediately threatening than Travis.These differences are minor, though. For the most part, "Don't Come Knocking" is wholly inferior to "Paris, Texas". Wenders and Shepard admit to making up their script as they went along, don't seem to have any definitive goal in mind, and their film features 2 or 3 silly moments, all of which involve Shepard's son throwing incredulous tantrums. Elsewhere the film trades in clichés, though actresses Sarah Polley and Jessica Lange manage to do special work with their characters. Lange in particular plays her part somewhat unconventionally, her character masking pain with private humour.Despite its problems, "Don't Come Knocking" looks amazing. Virtually every scene is shot with an interesting eye, Wenders lending the film a wonderful sense of mood, space, colour and landscape. The visuals are so strong you almost don't care about the story, which is the case with most of Wenders' best films. Why is this? One must remember that Wenders often travels the world with a Polaroid camera, taking photos of interesting locales, architecture, buildings and landscapes. He then compile these photos into private albums. Often his films then become "excuses" for "filming" these albums. "Don't Come Knocking", for example, was largely made as an excuse to shoot the town of Butte, which Wenders had visited and photographed over a decade earlier. The town strongly reminded him of Edward Hopper, a number of whose paintings Wenders emulates here."Don't Come Knocking" is also heavily influenced by Michelangelo Antonioni, Nicholas Ray and Yasujiro Ozu. Many of these artists Wenders has himself collaborated with. Wenders' 1980 documentary, "Lightning on the Water", for example, was about Ray's last days, 1985's "Tokyo Ga" was a documentary on Ozu, and he collaborated with Antonioni on 1995's "Beyond the Clouds". Significantly, all these artists, as well as Hopper, are typically termed "existential artists" (though the term has perhaps lost all useful meaning). Wenders also labels himself an "existential director", and is generally preoccupied with alienation and questions of self-identity. Occasionally his Christian beliefs influence his films as well.Perhaps no other director has made as many "road movies" as Wenders. He'd even name his production company "Road Movies", and almost always uses the genre as a kind of metaphor for journeys of self discovery or escape. But the way in which Wenders merges European modernism with America genre filmmaking (he's in love with Americana, American culture, music, iconography etc) has rightfully led to much criticism. His is a kind of romanticised alienation, a designer existentialism, overly preoccupied with outer decor and style. You see that with "Don't Come Knocking", its characters and plot an afterthought, whilst its buildings and vistas, shot lovingly in widescreen, like moving odes to Hopper, are the raison d'etre.8/10 – Eye-popping visuals and palatable mood make up for trite script. See Wenders' "Land of Plenty". Worth one viewing.

Steve Rhodes summed it up perfectly in his review: "Beautifully shot but a colossal bore..."Wim Wenders has lost it! He seems to be the only one left (along with a couple more Europeans) who still believes that all that he does is art. I heard a couple of interviews he made for German TV about the movie and his opinion of the US and it's policies recently. Instead of traveling around the world denigrating a country in which he lives and which has given him everything, he should concentrate on his film-making instead, and then maybe this would have been a better film. Why don't artists ever stick to what they know best and leave politics to responsible people?Anyway, coming back to the movie, there isn't really much to say; I will have to cite Steve Rhodes' review again: "The only thing good about 'Don't come knocking' is that Franz Lustig's cinematography will knock your socks off...", but that alone is nowhere near enough for a movie to even be watchable, let alone good.

This Movie tells you over and over how overwhelming life becomes because of obligations that exist before you arrive or set up as you go through life in one way or another and the realization that you don't have the depth that everyone expects you to have in any given situation. The character is trying to fill up the wide spaces in his heart but everything that belongs in the spaces is too demanding to cling to so he takes comfort in the wide spaces and emptiness of places. Watch the surrounding backdrops and how they parallel this character. You want more, you're supposed to. He wants more but doesn't know how to find comfort there. There just may not be any comfort in having closeness to anything or anyone. I definitely agree with the person who spoke of SAM's influence on the screenplay it's great. I thought performances were wonderful and liked the little surprises like George Kennedy and Tom Cruise and Tim Matthieson (The voice of Jonny Quest Eva Marie Saint is perfect and so is Jessica Lange and Tim Roth. Step outside the box and don't look for "Hollywoodland" formula, look for what the writer wanted to impart and then feel the movie for what it is, not what you want it to be!