A paean to the (then) divided city of Berlin, the langourously paced Wings of Desire gently and artfully questions mortality as angels watch over the people living their daily lives.
Shot in both colour and black and white, Damiel (Bruno Ganz – Downfall, The Party) yearns to return as a mortal, to experience sensory feelings of emotion and taste. Falling in love with a trapeze artist, Marion (Solveig Dommartin – Faraway So Close, S’en fout la mort), he and colleague Cassiel (Otto Sander – Faraway So Close, Rosa Luxemburg) visit others as observers, watching and guiding but never seen (except by children). A visiting American director (Peter Falk – TV’s Colombo – as himself) unable to see Damiel is fully aware of his presence.
Lyrical, sensory, atmospheric, with its ceaseless camera movement, this iconic European New Wave film of the 1980s from director Wim Wenders (Pina, Paris Texas) encapsulates the zeitgeist of the time. Featuring, among others, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Wings of Desire is a wordy poem to the mundane, a visual diary of the everyday as, like the angels, we overhear thoughts, hopes and aspirations.
Rating: 77%
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