Wings of Desire

What About the sequel? Far Away, So Close? Still waiting for "Far Away, So Close" by Wim Wenders to appear in iTunes. An excellent film different from WOD but excellent still. Best song in FASC is Lou Reed singing "Why Can't I Be Good?"

This review is an excerpt from my book “Killer B’s: The 237 Best Movies On Video You’ve (Probably) Never Seen,” which is available as an ebook on iBooks. If you enjoy this review, there are 236 more like it in the book (plus a whole lot more). Check it out! WINGS OF DESIRE: Angels walk among us. Innocent children sometimes see them. The angels listen in on our whispered inner monologs, often offering a comforting touch. One among them, Damiel (Ganz), is tired being a disembodied spirit, envying us our ability to touch, to feel, to love. When he becomes enamored of lonely French trapeze artist Marion (Dommartin), he decides to trade an eternity of observation for a few short mortal years of living experience. But first he must locate the missing Marion. Will destiny—or a guardian angel—allow their paths to cross again? Discussion: Would you trade eternity for love? Renounce immortality for a transient, yet sensory, life? Evidently many angels do, as the lightness of their ethereal existence contrasts with the weight of their burden of separation. They speak, appropriately enough, in a kind of Rilkean poetry, and seeing the world through their eyes, as they pass through a library or a train car, allows us a glimpse of the ineffable sadness and longing that is our condition and their perception. With his world-weary face and deep, soul-filled eyes, Ganz makes a perfect angel, and a fine human, too, responding with childlike delight to the mundane—colors, coffee, cold—and leaving us with one final question: Is it possible that a mortal life lived in love and wonder can transcend even an angelic existence? A lovely, somber dirge, filled with vivid imagery and a deep appreciation of the fleeting.

3.5 stars. You have to give Wenders and writer Hanke all due props for what they attempted and achieved here, even if it doesn't all work. It invites you to think very big thoughts and to feel deeply about what it means to be human, but what I really like about it are the beautiful and sometimes funny little moments strewn through it, the small gestures that in their ways say more than the periodic bouts of pretentious poetics. The black and white segments look gorgeous. Ganz and Falk are wonderful. Too bad it ends the way it does, sinking into mawkishness, but still. Herzog and Malick are better at this sort of thing than Wenders, but he gave it a very good shot here.

No wonder U2 stole from it in one of their videos.

Based on Rilke's Duino Elegies, this is a film quite simply about what it means to be human. Gorgeous photography, metaphysical depth, lyrical beauty, and historical insight make this film one of the best ever produced. So moved was I by this film that it forever changed the course of my life from scientist to humanist. A consummate masterpiece.