Tokyo-Ga (1985, Wim Wenders)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtl558KARx0&w=622&h=390%5D

Wender’s companion piece to Sans Soleil (although it was filmed at around the same time, it was released two years later), Tokyo-Ga is a document of Wenders’ voyage to Tokyo, where he goes to see if the Tokyo depicted by the legendary director Yasujiro Ozu in the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s is still there. Narrated by Wenders himself, the film ends up being a meditation on Japanese culture, cinephilia, and the relationship between reality and film. You’ll feel smart because Wenders has such a studied, deliberate way of speaking Wenders’ narration, and you also will learn interesting facts about Japanese culture. You also might develop an appreciation for classical Japanese cinema, even if you have never seen any of it before.