The cult film by visionary filmmaker and music connoisseur Wim Wenders about angels, circus performers, and a divided Berlin brought him a Best Director award at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.
Two angels, Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander), are watching the city from above. Once they descend they are able hear people’s thoughts. The angels look like humans and in their long, dark coats they are easily lost in the crowd, but to the human eye they are invisible. One day, Damiel decides to change that: he falls in love with trapeze artist Marion (Solveig Dommartin) and becomes human so that she can see him.
Wenders began working on the film after his American period and was in a way rediscovering Europe: its fatigue, its lack of space, the jumble of people and cultures. Road movies set in desolate landscapes and amidst eye-catching advertising boards were replaced by the «urban symphony.» This essay-like genre was popular in the avantgarde film of the late 1920s. And, apart from its choice of the city as the protagonist, Wings of Desire is reminiscent of the 1920s avantgarde, with its free-flowing camera, angles unusual for the human eye, and monochromatic palette.
Seen in its entirety from the sky, the city disintegrates as we get closer. It is divided by a wall that will be destroyed two years after the film’s release. Dividedness—not political but existential—and attempts to overcome it are among the key themes of the movie. Boundaries may be less impenetrable than they seem: an inner monologue is interrupted by an exciting circus show or a concert featuring Crime & the City Solution and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds; a monochrome eternity can be exchanged for a human life in color, and loneliness can make way for connection.
The movie will be screened in German, English, French, Turkish, Spanish, Japanese, Japanese, and Hebrew with Russian subtitles.
Wings of Desire
Director: Wim Wenders
Germany, France, 1987. 130 min. 16+