Der Himmel über Berlin

Plot synopsis:
Note: This film was shot in black/white and color. The Angels cannot see color. Therefore, when the shot is from the angels' point of view, the shot is black and white, and when the shot is from a human point of view, it is in color. There is much poetic language used in this film that simply cannot be properly conveyed.Damiel (Bruno Ganz) is writing on a paper, When the child was a child. He goes through a series of statements about when children were children: what they thought, how they acted, etc. Then, the opening credits appear. It fades to a scene of the sky, then a close-up of a human eye, then a bird's eye view of Berlin.Damiel is looking over the city from atop a large statue. He has wings, but they disappear only a few seconds into the scene. He can hear the people below, but only the children can see him. There is a quick shot of a flapping wing, and then we see one man walking with a baby. While we see this, Damiel speaks about wanting to see color and feel alive.We hear the thoughts of a woman on a bicycle. Damiel is on an airplane, passing through the aisle. He stops to see a little girl. Then, he focuses on Peter Falk (as himself). People's voices are heard.Peter talks to himself about the writer's block he is having over his script. Peter speaks in English. A shot of Berlin is shown from the airplane's view. We hear various radio stations as we see the radio tower over Berlin. The camera pans into an apartment, and we hear various people's thoughts. Many of the things we hear are typical thoughts, or people's problems.Again, Damiel starts to think, When the child was a child. This time he is wondering what children think about. We follow Damiel around his daily routine. First, we fly once more over the city, listening to an ambulance. Then we see the pregnant woman inside the ambulance. We hear the pregnant woman's thoughts. Then, we hear the thoughts of the people in the cars around the ambulance.Damiel sits in a car with Cassiel (Otto Sander). They discuss their log books for the day. As Cassiel speaks, Damiel focuses on a couple embracing each other on the sidewalk. Damiel tells his works of the day to Cassiel. He says how wonderful it is to live for eternity and to hear people's spiritual thoughts. But, he wishes that he could live day by day, be greeted by strangers, and be able to say now, instead of eternity, to do things in pretense. All the wonderful things of living, even things like a fever and black fingers from reading the newspaper, are things that Damiel wants to experience. Then, woman on the sidewalk tells her husband about how she would like to own the convertible in which Damiel and Cassiel are sitting.We move to the library, which is full of noise and full of people's thoughts. There are many other guardian angels there, looking over the shoulder of their selected people. The angels recognize each other and nod hello to one another. Damiel picks up a pencil in spirit, and carries it around with him. Cassiel watches Damiel from a distance. Damiel runs into an old man (Curt Bois). Even though he is old, he wants to tell his story again.Damiel gets on the subway. He scans the people while hearing their thoughts. He sits down next to a man in dire straits. The man feels like life is no longer worth living. Damiel sits down next to him and touches his shoulder. Suddenly, the man's attitude changes and he is ready to solve his problems. He watches two children use a magnet to dig for change in the drain, and then goes to visit the traveling circus.Marion (Solveig Dommartin) practices a new routine on the trapeze. The ringleader criticizes her, but Marion only complains about how difficult it is to perform with her feather wings on. She speaks French, but it is sometimes mingled with German.The film suddenly turns from black and white to color, and we know that we are now watching from Marion's instead of Damiel's perspective. Marion swings on the trapeze. The film transfers back to black and white and a man comes in to say that the circus is broke and must pack up for the season. We hear Marion's thought that tonight is a full moon, the last night of her old performance. She thinks that a trapeze artist always breaks her neck on the night of the full moon. We hear Marion's deep thoughts about her unhappy disposition. She sits outside with her thoughts. She wants someone to love, and to love her, someone to depend on. When she was little, she wanted to live alone on an island, gloriously alone. She doesnt have an identity, and no where to go like a small animal in the forest.She retires to her trailer and puts on a record. Marion sits on her bed as Damiel watches her. She asks herself what she should do now. She thinks about staying in Berlin. She thinks about her final night this evening. She thinks, I think as if I'm talking to someone else. Meanwhile, Damiel looks at the pictures on Marion's mirror. Marion starts to change her clothes. Damiel reaches over to touch her, but he can't because he is not human. Marion says she is looking for the will to love. The film turns to color as she puts on her robe. She juggles three apples, and laughs.Back in b/w film, Damiel comes across a bridge to a motorcycle/car accident. A man sitting on the sidewalk has suffered from a concussion. Damiel holds the man's head, and talks to him. The man starts repeating what he says. Damiel gets up and walks away, and the man is still talking in the background. We hear another man's voice taking over the words of the other man as Damiel walks away. Damiel gets on the train. The voice continues as we see Damiel sitting on a statue overlooking Berlin once again.Cassiel is standing over the old man in the library. The man is surrounded by globes, and he analyses the movement of the solar system. He talks about how the world is changing and fading into dusk. We see him look in a book and reminisce about the past. In the past, he looked up to the warriors and heroes, but now he just lives one day at a time. As the old man reminisces, we see real footage from after the war. Men and women are passing by the ruins in the street. Lots of pictures of dead people and babies on the street, all piled up one-by-one next to each other. Cassiel is looking over the old man's shoulder again. The old man wonders why we cannot just have peace but always war. If he gives up, mankind won't have a storyteller, and humans will forget their childhood.Meanwhile, Damiel sits atop the large guardian angel sculpture monument. The old man walks through a desolate place on the East side of the Berlin wall. He reminisces about what once stood in those places. He is in disbelief that Potsdamer Platz once stood there. Then, he points out where the café Josti used to stand. As he reminisces, we see historical footage of the area. The footage cross-cuts back to the old man and Cassiel. He talks about how the times changed. The flags started appearing, the people or the police were no longer friendly. He will not stop telling his story until the Potsdamer Platz is found again. He sits down in an old chair in the middle of the desolate field, and scratches his head. The old man asks where are the heroes and the children, where are the ones that listen to his stories? We hear helicopters overhead.The old man plays a little musical toy on a street corner. He smiles to himself, and is still reminiscing and looking back on what has happened to society. Cassiel is looking over a railroad and street from atop a building. He finds a young girl who is prostituting herself to escape from her family. She thinks to herself that she needs Klaus because he will take care of her. But, Klaus can't take care of her, she thinks, because he is dead.A car pulls out of a garage. The driver thinks about how there are still so many borders everywhere. He drives through the streets with Cassiel in the car. The German people have divided into as many states as there are individuals, the man thinks to himself. He poetically talks about borders. Again we see real footage of cleanup after the war, from the perspective of a passenger in a car driving by. The driver thinks a little more about the difficult border that the people face today. He pulls into a center.We hear Peter Falk talking from outside the car. He is telling a young boy about the new movie plot. They are making a movie about Hitler, and Peter asks the boy if the plot sounds plausible. A woman takes pictures, and Peter yells at her that they have enough pictures already. He complains to his assistant that he is wearing a dumb-looking hat. They go inside the old building where the movie is being filmed and dig through the hat bin to find the right look for him. He says that wants a hat that makes him look like an anonymous German. He tries on hats in front of a mirror on a movie set, while Cassiel is still watching him.Damiel is also there, but he is watching from the second floor. After Peter Falk finds the right hat, we see all the extras sitting around. Peter compares himself to Columbo. Then, he thinks about dinner, and wonders whether Germans make a certain food or not. The angels look around the room, listening to people's thoughts. Damiel focuses on a woman who is thinking about the past. The scene changes to a historical film, showing the work of the Rubble Women cleaning up all the bricks after the war. She thinks about a house that was half destroyed. We see Damiel again, coming out of the reminiscence.Peter comes up and asks the woman if he can draw her. She allows him. He sketches her, and thinks to himself about her face. He considers what the term "extra" implies; these people are extra people. The woman wonders if he will give her the picture. Peter focuses on his drawing once more.The movie starts filming. Two men are fighting. Cassiel observes as Peter asks the director if the latter has time for an interview with a Berlin television station. The director tells the interviewers that he can do the interview now. Cassiel and Damiel are both listening to Peter's thoughts as he walks away.Damiel says to Cassiel, "Come, I'll show you something else." They go to the traveling circus where Marion works. The audience is filled with children. A bunch of costumed people come out to entertain, and the little girl sitting next to Damiel keeps talking with him. Cassiel stands at the back of the tent observing. As the performance goes on, Damiel goes back to thinking, when the child was a child. He names several differences between what children do and what adults do.The circus show continues with a man throwing flaming knives at Marion dressed in a cat suit. Then, Marion crawls up a rope. She does a few tricks on the rope before crawling back down. Balloons fall from the ceiling, and the children all enter the ring and play with the performers.Damiel thinks about what it was like when time began, before the land was formed, and civilization began. We see several landscapes and beautiful nature scenes. For myriads of years only fish lived. Cassiel talks about the rest of creation. We see Damiel and Cassiel walking over a bridge next to the Wall. They talk about philosophical and spiritual things. They talk about the stories still continuing on.Damiel talks about how he wants to create his own story on earth. He and Cassiel go through the Berlin Wall. He thinks about the simple things in life that he wishes to discover for himself.Damiel and Cassiel walk down the street together. They come back to the movie set where Peter is. Peter is thinking about another drawing subject, and about his family and his career. There is a scene being shot in the background.The old man is standing in the open field again. He thinks about how all the roads in Rome lead somewhere, but not in Berlin. There are hidden roads for storytelling in Berlin. Why can't everyone see from childhood these secret places? If they could, there would be a history without war.Cassiel sits with a suicidal man atop the Mercedes building. He is contemplating jumping off, and the other people atop the building are trying to convince him to come down. He thinks about very random things such as what he is wearing and how the weather is. He also thinks about his love before jumping off of the skyscraper.The next scene is in color. Peter is watching his own interview on TV. He is talking about the story of the new movie that they are filming.Next we see the large angel sculpture, which then fades from color to black and white. Cassiel jumps off from atop the statues wings. The following sequences are fast-forward, blurry movements with the camera. Some of the shots have people in them. A couple is fighting in their apartment, and then we see a boy crying for his mother.Next we see a montage of historical footage: World War II planes flying in the sky, machine guns, people fleeing, a fire breaking out, and a entire quarter going up in flames. We hear sirens in the background. The fire department is trying to put the fires out. A man sits at a pay phone, passed out.Marion is in her trailer, getting ready for her last performance. She encourages herself as she looks into the mirror. Damiel is there watching her and listening to her thoughts. She thinks to herself, the trapeze artist always breaks her neck in a performance on the night of a full moon.The last circus performance is underway. A man is performing a magic trick in the ring, while Damiel watches. Marion is upon her trapeze. Damiel stands in the ring and puts his hand on the ringleader. She performs on the trapeze. Despite a few minor scares, the performance is successful. Damiel walks through the camp after the performance. All of the circus workers are gathered around the fire, drinking and singing in French. Marion thinks about how she wishes to be happy for once.Cassiel is sitting with a book in the library. The library is empty, except for the cleaning ladies and a few other angels.Meanwhile, Marion goes to a concert. Damiel is still watching her. Marion dances in the audience. The singer sings an emotionally charged rock song. Cassiel is also there, on stage with the singer. Damiel is still fascinated with Marion. We hear Marion's thoughts. Once Damiel touches her, she feels an inner sense of well-being.Cassiel looks into a laundromat where an immigrant woman is sitting, and thinking to herself in a foreign language. For a brief moment, the laundromat turns to color.Marion is in bed sleeping. We see her, and then a flash of wings, then her again. Then, we see Damiel reaching out from heaven with wings and his armor on. Marion, also in the clouds, looks toward him. She begins to say, When the child was a child. She asks the same questions that Damiel asked in the beginning. Damiel is sleeping atop of Marion's chest. Their hands touch in heaven. Damiel gets up, and Marion awakes.Cassiel is alone on a double-decker bus. Peter walks through a demolished muddy field. He is thinking about his Jewish grandmother. A group of young men walk by and ask each other if that is Columbo. Nah, they say, it couldn't be. Damiel meets Peter at a snack kiosk. Peter confronts Damiel, he says, I can't see you but I know you're here. The snack worker looks at Peter like he's crazy. Peter tells Damiel about the luxuries of living a mortal life.Cassiel walks across a street near the Wall. Damiel and Cassiel meet in between the two walls in a military-controlled area. They speak. Damiel has decided to become human. He talks about what he is going to do when he first becomes human. He starts off with normal things, such as taking a bath. Soon, his list becomes more unattainable, until he says that the mayor is going to invite him into his car, and they will go for a drive together. The last thing he says is that he will understand every language--and that will be his first day! Cassiel looks at him and says that none of it will come true. They laugh. We look intently at Damiel's face, and the film changes to color. Damiel looks behind him, and his footsteps are visible, but not Cassiel's. Cassiel realizes that his good friend has become human. They are still standing in between the two Germanys in a guarded territory. Cassiel takes Damiel away.Damiel wakes up on a street on the east side of the Wall. He is awoken by his bronze breastplate of armor falling on his head. He is very happy. Some little children stare at him and think he is drunk. They run away. Damiel gets up and walks away with his armor. He feels his head, and realizes that it is bleeding. He tastes it, and realizes it is blood. He is happy because now he begins to understand. He asks a passerby if that is red. They look at the wall and the stranger tells him the colors. He talks about the weather, and how he wants a coffee. The stranger gives him some change for a coffee. They go their separate ways.Damiel crosses the street and finds a snack kiosk. He orders a coffee. He rubs his hands together because he is cold. When the child was a child, he thinks to himself about the things that kids do still happen today. Damiel is walking down the street as he thinks. He still has his armor in hand. He sells his armor at an antique store. When he gets out of the store, a little boy asks Damiel for directions. Damiel gives him a lengthy set of directions, and the little boy walks away confused.Marion and the French circus are packing up. Damiel goes up to the gate where they are shooting Peter Falk's movie and is redirected to another gate. He is a little shocked that he couldn't just walk right in. He walks to the gate for the extras. They also deny his entrance, and he waits at the gate with the other fans. He yells to Peter, and Peter comes up to the gate to talk to him. Peter says he is glad to meet Damiel, but he expected a taller man. He tries to give Damiel money, and then tells him that he got ripped off on the price of the armor. Peter talks about how much he sold his armor for thirty years ago. Damiel is surprised to find that Falk is also a fallen angel. Peter gives Damiel a cigarette. Peter asks him what he is going to do, and Damiel tells him about Marion. Damiel wants to know more about life, but Peter encourages him to find every thing out for himself.The circus is leaving. They are saying goodbye to Marion. She is standing alone in the middle of the empty field when they all drive away.The film is back to black and white, and Cassiel is sleeping on the statue. He covers his ear and all the sounds of the city stop. Marion's thoughts chime in. She is confused about who she is and where she is taking her life. She is sitting in the middle of the ring. Cassiel is watching over her. The color comes back. She stands up and leaves.Damiel is jogging to find Marion. He arrives at the place where the circus was to find it empty.
He looks around, and is a disappointed. He sits down in the ring. A couple of kids ask Damiel what he is doing, and if he's okay. He ties one of the children's shoes, and tells them he's fine. They leave. Cassiel stands next to him. Through his thoughts he tells Cassiel that he will find her tonight, and something important is going to happen.The film returns to color as Marion runs across the street. Damiel is coming up from the subway. He eats an apple, and watches Peter Falk on a storefront television. Marion stands at a snack kiosk. Falk shows up next to her. She says that he must know how to find people. He asks her if she is looking for somebody. She says that she doesn't know. Meanwhile, Cassiel is looking over their conversation in black and white. Peter knows that she is looking for a man, but she doesn't know anything about him. She says goodnight, and leaves. Cassiel still watches. Peter gives him the same speech that he gave Damiel, but Cassiel doesn't take the bait.Marion walks down the street. Damiel walks down another street. He finds a poster of the band that Marion likes, and he goes to the concert. Marion is also at the concert. The performer is singing about the carnival leaving. Cassiel is standing next to the singer on stage. He is looking (in black and white) at Marion. Everyone claps. Cassiel listens to the thoughts of the singer. He thinks to himself that he is not going to tell the audience about the girl. As soon as he talks, though, he tells them about a girl.Damiel makes his way slowly through the crowd. He takes a seat at the bar in the next room from the concert. Marion is still watching the singer. She decides to leave for the bar. Cassiel walks off the stage. He simply stands in the back, closing his eyes. Then, he turns and puts his head and hands on the wall.Marion walks up next to Damiel at the bar. Damiel gets up and stands next to her. He hands her his drink. The song stops in the background. She sips the drink. He tries to get closer, and she stops him. It must finally become serious, she says. She talks about how she was often alone, but she never lived alone. Marion goes on a long monologue. Damiel gets closer.Marion speaks: Now it's serious, finally it's becoming serious. In loneliness one is made whole. Tonight will she finally be alone, she says. Tonight is a new moon, a new moon of decision. We are now the times. We are two, but we are representing the people now. The whole place is full of people dreaming the same dream. And we are deciding everyone's game. I am ready. You hold the game in your hand. Damiel smiles at her. You need me, she says. There is no greater story than ours: that of a man and a woman; a story of new ancestors. Look at my eye, they are pictures of necessity. The future of everyone in the place. Last night, I dreamt of a stranger. Only with him could I be alone, open for him. And welcome him wholly to me, and we could share in happiness. I know that it's you.They kiss.We see the statue guardian angel statue once more. Damiel spots Marion as she practices her routine on a rope. Cassiel sits in a cloud of black and white on the stairs behind them. Damiel talks about the oneness of him and Marion. He says, who was who: it was true then and it is true now. I was in her, and she was around me. Who can claim this? I am together. I learned astonishment. She took me home, and I found home. It has happened one time, and therefore forever. First, the amazement of the two of us, man and woman brought me to being.I know now... what no angel knowsCassiel sits atop the statue. He hears the thoughts of the old man once more. Men, women, and children will search for him, their storyteller, he thinks to himself, because they need him--they need a storyteller.The film ends with, "To be continued..."

Tags: mystery, boring, cult, atmospheric, flashback, psychedelic, philosophical, romantic

Review:
A poem continues throughout the movie and ties everything together, repeating "When the child was a child..." and we realize that humans are the children, the ones younger than angels, just learning and enjoying life.
A note to those of you who have only seen the bland, woefully wrong-hearted and half-assed "City of Angels", an unnecessary Americanization of this modern classic:  this film leaves Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan in the dust.
He soon must choose whether or not it is worth sacrificing the endless grace of being an earth-bound angel to know what it is like to be human, to "see at eye level."After having seen this film eight times or so, I can safely say that it is my favorite movie of all time.
Wenders had done other Handke works in film - Alice in the Cities, The Lefthanded Woman, The Goalie's fear of the Penalty- but this one is very different.This movie is about giving up the ethereal life of the observer and actually living it.
It's the wonder of the child within discovering life in all it's beauty -- in even the most mundane and everyday things.************ PLOT SPOILER ALERT ***********The job the angels that nobody seems to have noted here is this: They can exist in all times flowing through one spot (Berlin) and must record instances of Humansexpressing "Spirit".A damned rare thing, it's true, but they must record it whenever they can.Hollywood chose to leave that notion completely out of that horrible Nicolas Cage/Meg Ryan "Vehicle" remake.(Worth it for the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Mick Harvey's Crime and the City Solution alone).
The story evolves when one angel Damiel (Bruno Ganz) wonders what it is like to be human, how it is like to be able to feel, to hold or to be seen.
Wings of Desire sways towards the latter.It has a great premise- angels (not winged creatures but men in cool black coats, similar to the portrayal of the dead in Orphee) watch over late eighties Berlin, observing the humans they see around them.
I was disappointed to find out that although it may not be a bad film, it is by no means a brilliant one.The cinematography is great, although the monochrome angels and technicolour humans had already been done 40 years previously.
And the sky over Berlin, with its angels, is the only thing that keeps together two painfully divided sides of the city, and the only perspective from which to see it as one.But handle with care: if you're looking for a movie with an enthralling plot, a clear language and a reasonable pace, you'll be disappointed.
This is clearly against all rules and all common sense.Despite all this the movie works and the reason is, the movie somehow manages to touch deep strings all the way through, because of its beautiful imagery (thanks to director of photography Henri Alekan), its eerie soundtrack, the disorderly collection of truly poetic dialogues/monologues, very inspired acting, and the impredictable combined effect of all this -- surely beyond what was planned by Wim Wenders himself.
Should I add that the movie has created its own language for making its point?The film has also become an incredible documentary on Berlin just before the fall of the wall..
Watching this movie makes one understand why some people dislike "art films."  It is a series of unending scenes of streaming introspection.
They barely abated throughout the course of the film, and by the end of it I was choked-up, calling friends to share my experience.How often does that happen in a movie theater?I've never seen "City of Angels" either, and am in no hurry, as I fear it may dilute my original experience.
Only 3 years after the unforgettable "Paris, Texas" (1984), Wim Wenders presented us with another masterpiece: "Wings of Desire" (or "The Sky Above Berlin" in the original German title), a mesmerizing film about the joy of life, partially inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke's (1875-1926) poetry.The story of the angel Damiel (the excellent Bruno Ganz, who'd play Adolf Hitler 17 years later in the Oscar-nominated "Downfall"), who falls in love with a mortal circus acrobat, Marion (Solveig Dommartin, Wenders's then-girlfriend, who died last January) and wishes to become human is told by breathtaking images (cinematographer Henri Alekan's courtesy - he worked on Cocteau's "La Belle et la Bête") - the angels see in black and white, humans see in colors; philosophical, analytical observations about human life (and death); scenes of beauty in the simplest things in a masterful way that never becomes corny or boring.
If you think along these lines, then don't watch this movie, because it is going to deliver what it promises.But if you have no preconcepts, a heart and a brain, then you will love it.It is a movie that stirs thoughts and emotions, and you will find yourself thinking about what you saw for a long time.
On top of this, add superb acting, inspired photography, the city of Berlin, and a lot of children.It is a little sad that 17 years have passed since Wenders shot this masterpiece, and nothing that followed (from him or anybody else) came even close to it.It is not a movie that you want to watch every week, in fact one vision lasts for few years, the same way you don't need to read War and Peace more than once every ten years, and this is probably the best analogy: Der Himmel über Berlin is a classic.One more note: I enjoyed the remake (City of Angels), it was somewhat good, but it never actually crossed my mind that it was intended to be a remake of this one, so far are the two from each other.
I've had this film recommended to me by several people and I finally got around to watching it and like a few others on here I could only suffer about ninety minutes before I gave up and switched it off.The cinematography is excellent although the mixing of monochrome and colour was a cliché even in 1987 (only good use is in 'A Matter Of Life And Death') and it was for that alone that I gave the film the time that I did.
At best the film was making obvious points about life and at worst it was deliberately obscure and inaccessible.I get the impression that this piece has a touch of 'the emperor's new clothes' about it; that to say you think it's rubbish labels you as a philistine, but the truth is that it isn't very good and a classic example of style over content.
In West Berlin, still surrounded by the Berlin Wall, angels Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander) spend their time observing human life and comforting those in need of it.
He and Cassiel have also taken a special interest in visiting actor Peter Falk (playing himself) who is in town to shoot a World War II movie.The opening half an hour of this film is simply one of the most beautiful openings to a film I've ever seen.
An absolutely wonderful film that is truly one of the most moving and beautiful I've ever seen, and a true and a honest depiction of the human spirit.
Deliberately slow, meticulous film from West German filmmaker Wim Wenders features Bruno Ganz in a wonderful performance as an angel in 1987 Berlin (before the fall of the Berlin Wall) who becomes enamored with a sensual and sad circus performer and wishes to be human.
Now imagine if one movie could make you believe that there are plenty of angels floating around us all the time just to commiserate with us, wouldn't it be just wonderful!?, hell yeah.In Wim Winder's '87 movie, "wings of desire", it does make you believe that way.
This is not true, if you watch it the clock may say that only 3 hours passed between beginning and end but this movie has the property to bend time so it feels that it lasted an eternity.No one dies, no guns, no rockets, no "I always thought you were left handed" "headshot is the only true stopper".Really, unless you like incredibly boring art-movies with no dialogue or action, only weirdos having really quasi-intellectual monologues in b/w and with post war berlin as background then you will hate this movie.
Colour, smell, taste, love, friendship, music are all such an integral part of human existence yet without films like this we could easily take them for granted and forget how they enrich our lives.I suppose the angels in this film could even be viewed as representing children slowly waking up to the joys of life.
With so many other postings available I don't feel any need to mention plot points, all I wanted to put across was if you prefer thought-provoking films (with marvellous cinematography, contemporary soundtracks and the ability to remind us of the gentle joys of life) as opposed to the more visceral and empty films that are currently mass-produced then "Wings of Desire" is well worth investing your time in..
I loved it so much, I didn't want to see the new one, but when I saw how different "City" is, I came to like them both.This is just a beautiful piece of filmmaking.The images are gorgeous, striking a nice balance between the ethereal and the gritty, as you'd want from a movie about humans and angels.The dialogue is based on the poetry of Rilke.
No doubt those of you who have seen Brad Silberling's City of Angels with Meg Ryan and Nicolas Cage will want to go back and watch this original German version, directed with visceral style by Wim Wenders.
Bruno Ganz plays a wistful angel named Damiel who wanders Berlin attending to the spiritual needs of people whose souls need a lift, all the while wishing he was human himself.
I have yearned to watch Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire" since it made it to the top ten 'most important film of the past decade' (or two) by Premiere movie magazine.
The use of monochrome film for the point of view of the angels, and color for humans are done with such subtlety as to yield the perfect mood.
It starts out very slowly, and never really speeds up.Obviously, the American City of Angels is based on this film: an angel gets tired of not being a part of the world he's always watching and wants to become human to be with a woman he's in love with.
The way it uses black and white to show the angels' perspective and the change to color when Damiel (Ganz) becomes a man and realizes what the world really looks like, is the exact contrast needed to symbolize the transition between angel and man..
His slow, thought-provoking approach is not to everyone's liking, but he has real talent for inspiring us to question ourselves, question others, and question life.Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander) are two long-term angels who drift through WWII Berlin observing and listening to the internal thoughts and meandering of citizens ...
Damiel finds himself drawn to a Marion (Solveig Dommartin), a circus trapeze artist whose line "Most of the time I'm too aware to be sad" could easily have been the words of the angels.There is an over-lapping subplot with Peter Falk playing himself as an actor in a German film.
It's this existence that makes Damiel's decision understandable.Famed cinematographer Henri Alekam's floating camera and dramatic contrast of black & white (angels view) and color (human view), add to the meditative effects of the film.
His spellbinding portrait of Berlin, past and present, is poetry in motion: a haunting, hypnotic masterpiece that lingers in the memory long after its final image fades from the screen.From the opening aerial shots to the last (admittedly long-winded) soliloquy, the film is a provocative look at a world that has long since lost its innocence, as witnessed by a pair of benevolent guardian angels invisibly cataloguing human daydreams and emotions, and occasionally offering mute comfort in moments of private spiritual crisis.
In the divided city of Berlin what they most often overhear are poetic expressions of longing and despair, but it isn't enough to stop one empathetic angel from trading in his wings for a chance to experience all the mundane, earthbound luxuries of mortal life, from something as simple as a cup of hot coffee to something as complicated as falling in love.In less sensitive hands the idea might never have gone beyond a simple romantic fantasy (as in the inevitable Hollywood remake, starring Nicholas Cage), but Wenders and co-writer Peter Handke are more interested in making the film a vicarious tour of the human condition, overheard in passing: an infant's first joyous observations; the final thoughts of an auto accident victim; the calm resignation of a man on the brink of suicide; and the recollections of an actor (Peter Falk, playing himself, but with a whimsical twist) on location during the making of a war movie.Wenders' typically moody soul searches aren't always easy to sit through, but the unexpected element of fantasy lifts the film completely out of the ordinary, and the soaring imagery (shot mostly in luminous black and white) goes a long way toward balancing the occasional clutter of repetitive prose-poetry during the sometimes protracted interior monologues.
In fact, a person with a good deal of sense could find this film (atleast the first part) trite and overly pretentious, if they were tointerpret the angels' dialogues and the people's thoughts as bitsof Wenders' philosophy that he wants to impart to us.
And after watching it, comes to mind that only a real angel could have put on earth a film like this; so, I'm pretty sure Wenders is one of them.
Wings of desire it´s such a marvelous love story, and one of the greatest films of all time..
A sensitive, graceful, thoughtful film about the human condition as seen from the point of view of two angels who watch over the city of Berlin.
The fact that the angels see everything in black and white, and humans see everything in color, is also a significant subtlety of this marvelous film..
When it comes to shooting a face of human, no one stands above Wim Wenders, and combined with the beautifully done soundtrack and Peter Handke's wonderful poetry, Wings of Desire is undoubtedly a masterpiece of the contemporary film scene..
Those are, in order the sequel, Far Way, So Close is very disappointing, and the fact that the American remake City of Angels (which I have not seen) exists.Many of Wim Wender's films are brilliant (Kings of the Road, The American Friend, Until the End of the World, to name a few...).
In Wim Wender's film, the angels are invisible walking through the divided city of Berlin.
Right when you think nothing will happen, the movie takes a turn and angel Damiel decides that he wants to be human.
Well, Wim Wenders probably spent too much time reading Thomas Mann or Sartre while taking in some Wagner because none of the philosophical meanderings makes much sense even to an elitist intellectual, but I digress.Bruno Ganz is a tall angel that wanders unseen amidst the citizens of Berlin.
The way the movie is filmed, how you can hear all people think when the angels walk by, and the how and why this angel falls in love with the girl and being human really made me feel the worth of human life myself.
Result was more than a brilliant work of Art, very unique and highly poetic modern masterpiece  Wings of Desire (original title is Der Himmel über Berlin).It is following two angels Damiel (brilliantly played by Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander) wandering through the streets of modern day Berlin and helping its citizens.
One day Damiel, aware of his detachment from the material world and in love with a mortal girl, decides to sacrifice his immortality.This film is a testimony to the little things we (humans) take for granted like a touch of a close friend or having a cup of coffee in a cold day.
It has my vote for the best cinematography ever in motion pictures (by then 78-year-old Henri Alekan!)Overall, Wings of Desire is a movie like no other  lyrical, haunting, poetic.
And...it just made me appreciate all the more Wim Wender's perfect movie, "Wings of Desire".
Artsy foreign film about two angels that come to Earth and spend a lot of time walking around listening to people's thoughts.
I had the opportunity to visit the city several times in the first decade of 21st century and it is definitely not Berlin from Wings of Desire.With a comforting premise that angels are watching over us, we follow them during their usual day.
Wim Wender's "The Wings of Desire" may be the best film of the '80s, if not the later 20th century.
Never before has a movie so dull been so fascinating and full of life.Set, and filmed, in Germany before the collapse of the Berlin wall, "The Wings of Desire" follows two angels on Earth, sent to observe the details and events that come with being human.
Perhaps Wenders is an angel himself, or just a great film-maker who knows the effects of hope, humanity, and compassion in a fragile world..
You can feel something wrong is happening: you can see the Berlin Wall, a lot of people contemplating life, and the black and white makes everything look like it's happening elsewhere.
I don't believe in angels, but this film made me want to believe that there is always someone watching over you in your time of need.
Wim Wenders likes making slow movies - as "Paris, Texas" or the "Soul of a Man".
Did you ever think about  why would an  angel decide to give away his immortal life and start living like a human being?