Wim Wenders on cinema, the failed European dream, and his new film 'Perfect Days'

The Euronews Culture team arrive at the rather swish Club Lounge at the Intercontinental hotel.

My colleague Fred is noticeably excited. Wim Wenders and his films mean a lot to us both, but they’ve marked him in a way that is actually quite moving to witness.

We’ve got an allocated 10 minutes with this year’s recipient of the prestigious Lumière Prize, the German filmmaker behind such classics as Paris, Texas, Wings of Desire and Buena Vista Social Club. An entire retrospective of his oeuvre is being shown at the Lumière Festival, including his new film Perfect Days, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. 

Wender's most recent film is a quietly captivating gem about Hirayama, an aging toilet cleaner (Kōji Yakusho, who won this year’s Palme for Best Actor) in Tokyo. Both Wenders and Yakusho break your heart and put it back together again with a unique and delicate potency. It sees Wenders taking a lifetime of wisdom and distilling it into a meditative tale about the joys of routinely life. As if that wasn’t enough, the whole beautiful and poignant character study is soundtracked to the sounds of Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Nina Simone. And I love me some Nina. 

Fred and I sat next to each other during the Cannes screening and we cried like lost children. Happy tears, mind you.

Our quick time slot is something of a problem considering all we want to discuss with Wenders. I desperately want to ask him about the use of music in his films, considering the filmmaker has collaborated with the likes of Nick Cave, Ry Cooder, Eels, and many more... But others journos are here to interview him, so we make do. We compare questions we’ve prepared, pick the ones that will work with the clock ticking, and c’est parti.

“He speaks fluent