THE STATE OF THINGS is a highly personal film about filmmaking in Europe and America. It is about a film crew stranded at the westernmost tip of Europe. Director Friedrich Munroe (Patrick Bauchau), cameraman (Sam Fuller), scriptwriter, and actors have been abandoned by their producer. After shooting their last feet of film (they are working on the remake of a low-budget sci-fi thriller), there is nothing left to do but wait.
Friedrich finally sets out for Los Angeles to search for the missing producer (Allen Goorwitz). He finally finds him on Sunset Boulevard, in his RV, where he is hiding out from the mafiosi or loan sharks who are after him. The two have to pay with their lives for their black-and-white film adventure the following morning. Friedrich continues to “put up a fight” by “shooting back” with his Super 8 camera until the moment of his death.
Wenders’s parable on filmmaking has also been interpreted as his way of addressing the difficulties that he faced during the production of HAMMETT, his first film in the US.
