Cuba Libre

Extending his fascination with genre cinema, Petzold’s second feature is a made-for-television variation on the 1945 noir Detour, transposing Ulmer’s Poverty Row classic from the gloomy backroads of postwar America to the drab railway stations and sunlit autobahns of 1990s Europe. Across this colorless landscape, homeless drifter Tom tracks ex-lover-turned-prostitute Tina with the questionable assistance of a slick rich guy named Jimmy, pursuing parallel paths on a desperate odyssey westward that just might lead all the way to Cuba.