About the film "Wings of Desire"

This Wim Wenders directed film follows a spirit who's tired of the spiritual and yearns for physical existence. The spirit is an angel named Damiel, and his journeys with his companion, Cassiel, expose the isolation inherent in the human condition. But, moreover, Damiel's particular existential crisis gently urges us to appreciate the little things and decide for ourselves that life matters.

The angels can hear people's thoughts, so thinking makes up most of the film's dialog. I enjoyed Cassiel's going to the library where he finds other angels listening to books being narrated in people's minds as they read. There he finds an old man whom he follows, is drawn to perhaps because the aged traveler is so enduring and purposeful, who self-identifies as a storyteller, an indispensable part of humanity.

Meanwhile, Damiel wanders into a low-budget children's circus whose star performer is a beautiful, unfulfilled trapeze artist named Marion. He falls for her, lusts for her, and is spellbound by her poetically lonely train of thought. They share a yearning.

Damiel brings Cassiel to that night's circus performance, which is to be the last of the year. But as Damiel absorbs the show, Cassiel sees how deeply his companion feels the need to live. Afterwards Damiel confesses as much. Marion, while celebrating at the circus staff's after-party, pauses and, in her thoughts, appreciates being alive. Hearing this, Damiel's heart breaks.

So he resolves to become real, and when an empty piece of body armor crashes onto his head, Damiel wakes in a vacant lot, apparently knocked unconscious after being dropped from Heaven--a helicopter hovering overhead. To be human is to be vulnerable, so he pawns his rickety old armor and finds Marion at a night club. There, they each taste of the wine from the bar and she asks him to join her in a life of consequence, to live as if they are setting new precedents for future generations.

The story inverts the usual paradigm: instead of man imagining and chronicling heaven as the grand but remote paradise, the angels imagine and chronicle man as the simple and immediate body, and they do so in ways that elevate man without pretending he’s a miracle. This inversion is sacrilegious, but it does no harm.

The viewing audience watches the angels watch the people. When a scene calls for your sympathy and you feel that sympathy, you feel the sympathy of the angels, you see Earth through the angels’ eyes. For example, in one scene we peek in on a small family and find a young man alone in his bedroom, sulking and brooding over how nobody knows he’s alive, but then we learn his dad is sitting alone in front of the TV and worrying about his son’s future while mom sits alone in the kitchen doing the same.

Notes

• Peter Falk of course is really charming in this, single-handedly keeping a good chunk of the film interesting. ("Columbo" is one of the best series ever.)
• Cassiel urges someone to his shoes correctly--using a double knot.