As part of the “Soul for Europe” initiative, Wim Wenders offered this speech, 3,650 words of which are reprinted at New Statesman. [It’s also the twentieth anniversary of Wings of Desire; see the Japanese trailer at the jump.] “For most Europeans, Europe has become an abstract, alien entity,” Wenders argues. “They are no longer sure whether they should identify with it or dissociate themselves from it, whether they feel represented or repressed. As such, the image of Europe is a contradictory one. The word “image” is useful; Europe’s image is something quite different from the picture we have of our continent. An image is also a make, a brand, the product of a long series of past images, of stories, of tradition, of propaganda, of personal experience and reputation. Our feelings about Europe’s soul relate mainly to this image. Europe needs to regain its tarnished self-esteem, in order that it can recover its soul… [W]e know that today Europe is really the opposite: a haven of human rights; a realm of freedom such as history has never seen before. There is no more social entity anywhere else in the world, no more peaceful community of peoples, no more democratic tradition. It is a source of great personal pain to me to see so many young people who have given up on Europe. When I was a boy, the idea of Europe was the thing. The friendship between Germany and France, and the even more utopian vision of a United Europe, set my imagination soaring more than anything else – and yet Europe was still far away on the horizon. I would often cycle from the Ruhr region to Amsterdam to look at the pictures of Vermeer, Rembrandt and Van Gogh. My heart pounded each time I presented my German identity card at the Dutch border. European history in the first half of the 20th century was responsible for one feeling not exactly welcome, as a young German. A few years later, while I was hitchhiking in Brittany, a farmer tried to kill himself and me by crashing his Peugeot into a tree. I was the first German he had met since the war. All that seems as far away in the past as the war itself, during which I was conceived, but which was over by the time I was born. Today, you no longer have to show identity papers when travelling across Europe, and we use the same currency. When I was a boy, that was an absolutely unbelievable prospect. Now, that dream has become a reality, and no one is moved by it any more. It seems Europe is most desirable to those that don’t have it. In recent years, as I looked towards Europe from many other countries, especially in Africa, it warmed my heart to see the positively mythical status Europe enjoys there as an earthly paradise. From afar, our con tinent appears marvellous and resplendent, but close up, it is just business as usual, dull and strangely cool – what Berliners call “coffee gone cold”. What became of the dream? How did the whole idea disappear down the drain?” [Much more, including comparisons to “the American dream,” at the link.]

[Photograph of Wim Wenders and Franz Lustig © 2006 Ray Pride; Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Thessaloniki, Greece, November 2006.]

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