World On A Wire (1973) once again generated a weird coincidence that happens with surprising regularity when watching and discussing movies.
For example, I once remembered Timerider, starring the great, amazing, wonderful Fred Ward, out of the blue and ordered a copy. The next day, Fred Ward died. RIP.
Another time I watched the Initiation of Sarah, starring Kay Lenz. The next day I turned on the TV, and there was Kay Lenz in House. What are the odds that I would string together back-to-back movies that had Kay Lenz in them?
The current crazy coincidence is thus: World On A Wire has Barbara Valentin in it. Hawkzino just reviewed Horrors of Spider Island, which also had Barbara Valentin in it.
The odds of two guys reviewing two random movies on The Last Movie Outpost, that both starred a random actress, within a week of each other, is astronomical.
Cue Twilight Zone music. Maybe we are spending too much time together, and, like a group of women in an office setting, our cycles are synching up. This is a scary thought. Speaking of scary thoughts, let’s look at World On A Wire…
World On A Wire
World On A Wire is a German miniseries based on the book Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye. The plot involves a group of people who create an artificial world within a computer. This, in turn, creates a scary thought for them: what exactly is reality?
The Thirteenth Floor (1999), starring Craig Bierko, also used Simulacron-3 for its inspiration.
Rainer Fassbinder directed the film. As an American, I’ve never heard of him. If a culture doesn’t contain hot dogs and shooting up an old car in the woods with an AR-15 while swilling beer and lighting farts, then it is not worthy of my attention. Regardless, German readers would probably know of Fassbinder. He seems to have a solid credit list.
Fassbinder deserves credit for his eye on World On A Wire. It is a talky three-and-a-half hours with virtually zero action, yet Fassbinder makes the world incredibly watchable. Every frame is jammed packed with glorious 1970s visuals as the camera moves about this world.
I have never seen showy home décor, bold fashion choices, and voluminous hair look so dense onscreen. Normally, I find the 1970s look to be a bit unsettling. It is simultaneously too gaudy and too dirty. Yet, the world of World On A Wire is one I enjoyed soaking in…at least for the first hour and a half.
World On A Wire will, perhaps, motivate a person to check out some of Fassbinder’s other work.
War Of The Worlds On A Wire
Klaus Lowitsch stars as the technical director of the computer program hosting the simulated world. Viewers will recognize Lowitsch as General Vladimirov in Firefox.
Lowitsch is good in the role. He has a knack for looking cool onscreen. One can easily see him in a private-eye kind of role. Coincidentally enough, he starred in the German crime series Peter Strohm from 1989 to 1996. Believe it or not, Lowitsch also has a six-pack.
Lowitsch spends most of the film thinking seriously about his situation. His successor dies in a mysterious accident after making an unsettling secret discovery.
Lowitsche tries to uncover the secret. Most of this entails him moving from one 1970s set to another and having many, many conversations with characters. Some of the conversations remind one of The Matrix. The Wachowskis likely saw World On A Wire, and it provided some inspiration for their magnus opus.
Some of the characters Lowitsche encounters include the aforementioned Barbara Valentin as his secretary, who wants to make love, and Mascha Rabben as the daughter of Lowitsche’s boss, who also wants to make love. Must be Lowitsche’s six-pack…
James Bond fans are also in for a short treat. Gottfried John has a blink-and-miss-it role as an artificial person in the simulated world. John played General Ourumov in GoldenEye.
The World On A Wire Is Not Enough
How does World On A Wire work as a story? It works pretty well…for the first half. Then it wears out its welcome. At the end of the day, The Thirteenth Floor is a better version of this story with its noir setting and simply knowing when to get people up and out the door.
The structure of World On A Wire does not do itself any favors. The Thirteen Floor builds up to the revelation its story hangs upon. World On A Wire reveals that revelation in the exact middle of its runtime. With the mystery solved, the viewer wonders why the story is keeping them around for another hour and a half.
Lowitzsche spends the remainder of the film depressed, lazily chased and halfway looking for a specific person who can help him. The identify of this person is a mystery, but it all becomes clear in the end as Lowitsche gets the question of what exactly is reality answered.
Science-fiction often provides commentary on society. The original novel had the simulated world created for marketing purposes. It reduced the need for opinion polls. Some of this carries over into World On A Wire. The simulated world could be exploited to make real-world business decisions. For example, the simulated world is a copy of the real world and exhibits a need for steel. Then the real world corporations could anticipate this and plan accordingly. Unfortunately, this idea is not fully explored, only mentioned.
A World And A Bird On A Wire
World On A Wire is interesting despite its warts. Fassbinder’s direction goes a long way toward keeping it together. You know how Gore Verbinski gets every dollar onscreen? Fassbinder seems to have a similar talent in making the world he views through his camera lens jam-packed with reality.
The mini-series format is simply a bad fit in this case. At its heart, World On A Wire is a simple story. It is a murder mystery within a science-fiction setting. The philosophical questions about what is reality are simply window dressing to make it all more interesting and spin it into fresh territory.
Cut World On A Wire back to approximately two hours, and you probably have a minor classic. As it stands, it is still worth watching. It manages to exhibit style, a degree of soul and thought. For example, mirrors are used a lot to represent multiple worlds.
Considering the scary thought World On A Wire raises, I have no doubt this is exactly reality. A programmer would not deliberately program as much stupid as I have to deal with on a daily basis into a simulation. They would go mad…
