Overrated

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Forse uno dei migliori lavori di Wenders. L'infanzia....

Invisible (or occasionally visible only to children's beady eyes) angels are wandering among us, telepathic to our inarticulate thoughts, but ocularly, lives in a black-and-white realm, sometimes hovering above with a God's eye-view, sometimes passing us by like an apparition, sometimes contemplating our misery with utter poignancy, but they are unable to interact with neither a mortal's live nor the physical world, all they can do is observing, listening, extending a conciliatory but discarnate hand when empathy hits hard, in Wim Wenders' WINGS OF DESIRE, that is the price for a bystander's infinite existence.In West Berlin, just a few years before the demolition of that infamous wall, two angels Damien (Ganz) and Cassiel (Sander), dwelling in Berlin State Library, among others, confer about their philosophy, their year-round observance and their mission on earth, and divergence starts to crystallize when Damien gets particularly attached to a trapeze performer Marion (Dommartin, in her film debut), submerged entirely in her lonesomeness. Before her circus disbands, and encouraged by an erstwhile angel, the actor Peter Falk, COLUMBO himself, who forsook immortality 30 years ago, Damien decides to follow suit in pursuit of fulfilling his providential encounter with Marion; meanwhile a stolid Cassiel, closely follows an old man Homer (the swan song of the octogenarian Curt Bois, for an extraordinary career spanning over seven decades), sauntering around the city for the remnant of his war-ravaged past, becomes increasingly distressed after witnessing a young man's suicide and refuses Peter's overtures, remains his angelic form against the inexpressible torment as his deathless burden. Wenders' humanistic inclination melds fittingly with Peter Handke's poetic text, namely, the seminal and recurring poem SONG OF CHILDHOOD, monologized from Damien's perspective. It is not a fluke that he was crowned BEST DIRECTOR in Cannes, Wenders takes a great leap of faith in furnishing viewers with those sublime aerial craning shots and meditative dolly sequences, to say nothing of presenting Marion's nail-biting acrobatic performance, and the dichotomy between Angel's sepia-inflected monochrome and a varicolored human world totally nails the tonal shift that lends the film a timeless luster of cinematic appeal, which is not solely on the eye level, but plunges deep into one's psyche, to cogitate on humanity through a purely existential ground. Bruno Ganz is singularly expressive with his soul-reaching gazes and as a newly born human, he manifests a touching impression of elation and amazement that almost becomes mesmeric to behold; also, a supple Solveig Dommartin, gallantly conquers both senses of garish and ethereal while kills it on the trapeze, whereas Peter Falk relishes in his meta-presence with gusto and geniality. Gingered up with live rendition from Simon Bonney's Crime & The City Solution and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, WINGS OF DESIRE holds dear in its heart the most elemental sensation of being alive, and at the same time, formulates a lucid message to mankind's inescapable pathos, a knockout, through and through.

Make nothing happen... and viewers will look at your film like in a mirror ... the more boring and insignificant, the more meaningful it will be ... it will show your true independence, your courageous stance toward cinematic conventions. No you won't undergo the tyranny of plot, the dictatorship of having to "tell a story", the screen says its truth and they'll be there to experience it, and to drop some positive labels such as: a true-to-life story, a character study, like-looking-in-a-mirror, slap-in-a-face with a haunting atmosphere carried by monochrome photography.Nothing happens? You didn't get it? Never mind, some stuff is just beyond rational thinking and this is why Art Movies are for, conveying the kind of messages that demand many viewings to be fully gotten, and since you target a niche market, you'll find followers. The point is to explore abstraction and metaphysics , psychological and spiritual subjects, whose introspective content will justify the use of a dream-like atmosphere and a poetic screen writing, there is no answer to life, why should this film have one.I won't go as far as saying that "Wings of Desire" is arty indie for dummies but seriously, I've tried. I really wanted to plug my mind into that profound and stylish contemplation of human existence or the sheer loneliness of the human soul, inspiring at the end all these smart-sounding fancy words that make you sound like you've grasped a parcel of the director's light ... but I couldn't.I won't drop any director's names to tell you that I can handle intellectual movies, allow me just to say one thing about Ingmar Bergman, he's made movies that are as enigmatic and hypnotically bizarre-yet-intellectually-deep as WimWenders but one of his most notable trademarks is that his movies rarely lasted more than eighty or ninety minutes.Roger Ebert said that a good movie is never too long and a bad one never too short, I won't call "Wings of Desire" a bad movie but its languorous pacing and the time it takes to get to the point is so slow that even if you want to stay glued to the screen, you can't. The first act struck me as the kind of sequences you'd watch when embedded in the hospital, in fact, it's the kind of movie you'd watch at an old age or at the verge of death, staring at the screen while being carried away by your own "vague à l'âme" as they say in French.The film has Bruno Ganz, Peter Falk and the same cinematographer who worked in Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast" but it also has a melancholic and moody take on life and you must probably be in the proper mood to 'enjoy' it, I tried seven years ago and I could barely finish it, I tried twice again, I just gave up. Maybe I'm not as much into this kind of film; maybe I've watched too many films to ever take seriously one that features so much existential voice-over and monochrome photography. The film tries too much to be that intellectual knockout, I tried to have some glimpses on the Bonus Features but even Wenders' interview bored the hell out of me.Then I tried to get some insights from master Yoda himself, the great Roger Ebert and I found this little pearl where he's commenting on the acting of SolveigDommarten, the deceased actress who played the trapeze artist. His comment reminded me of my instant dislike of Aurore Clément's performance in WimWenders' previous success "Paris, Texas", I found her so bad she was almost distracting, now here's a similar observation from Roger Ebert, albeit in more flattering terms: "That may make it a "bad" scene in terms of the movie's narrow purposes, but does it have a life of its own? Yes, for the same reasons it's flawed. Movies are moments of time, and that is a moment I am happy to have."I think that's the worst symptom of "great" movies, genuine flaws are perceived as 'moments of time', of 'genuineness', we're talking of the stuff that potentially ruin careers and I don't see why it should be minimized because it's a great director, when it's a bad one, we find the flaws, when it's a good one, we find the excuses.And we do look for excuses because typically, these movies say less about the directors than the detractors, I'm quite aware that this film has an existential value, but I think I just walked off symbolically from the theater and embraced my own desire to fly over these contemplative issues. I'll try again, in seven years...

"Wings of Desire" from renowned German director Wim Wenders is remarkable in numerous ways:  deeply-introspective but never pretentious, touching on myriad human foibles & tragedies both personal and historical in scope. Observed from the vantage point of two inquisitive + empathic Angels commiserating (from above) with the sad lot and unrealized dreams of mere mortals.Paired with genuine sympathy the Angels are oftentimes simultaneously perplexed and intrigued by the precariously unpredictable & arbitrary fates endured by relentlessly beleaguered inhabitants of material-Earth (ie. We hapless humans).  A particular Angel named 'Damiel' (peerlessly portrayed by gifted Swiss actor Bruno Ganz) seems to take a special interest in we mortal beings. Damiel is no longer satisfied simply viewing human existence from afar, he comes to desire much more direct and tangible interactions = sharing humanity's sad plight and perhaps even hoping to experience + reveal/unravel just a few of the mysteries of 'Love' in the process?"Wings of Desire" is like no other film I have seen before or since as Wim Wenders along with Austrian playwright Peter Handke take us along side-by-side with the inquisitive Angels constantly observing, listening in, commiserating and commenting on the mysteries + paradoxes of death, peace, love, loneliness........ almost 'stream-of consciousness' at times, shifting from person-to-person, scene-to-scene but it somehow all makes more than a bit of sense and the myriad of rapid emotional-shifts from dark to light on to multi-gradients of gray, feel like natural progressions in the Life of an observant angel...... or everyday mortal human being.There is much more to this film's Story which devotes time to 3 specific characters the Angels cannot help but take special-interest in:  Trapeze Artist 'Marion' portrayed by delicately-beautiful Solveig Dommartin, who appears forlorn & bereft but possesses a mind abundant with profoundly deep insights and vivid dreams .....  'Homer' the aged (and ageless) poet who poignantly longs to write an 'Epic of Peace' that always seems far out of reach. Homer also carries the burden & eternal obligation to 'observe, record' (and internalize) humanity's relentless trials & tragedies as his Life's purpose..... Peter Falk even appears (as himself) illustrating 'extras' in his sketch-book while trying to develop a film ruminating on the Holocaust.    "Wings of Desire" is most certainly a unique and rewarding viewing experience.  While no movie could ever completely answer the mysteries of existence....... or fully unravel the meaning of Life plus added significance of Love, I was still surprised how deeply and authentically inquisitive (and even compassionate) this film is particularly within the conversations (and monologues) expressed in the last 20 minutes or so that actually raise questions and draw quite enlightening & heartfelt insights that feel genuine and not pretentious in any way.Note:  director Wim Wenders lensed most of this film in atmospheric B&W, with some historically-poignant scenes filmed near the Berlin Wall .....still-standing circa1986-1987 when this film was made.