Review Wings of Desire (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Wings of Desire (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Best Review

Wim Wender's deliberately paced, hauntingly realized contemporary masterpiece, Wings of Desire is, all at once: a political allegory for the reunification of Germany, an existential parable on a soul's search for connection, a metaphor for the conflict between, what Friedrich Nietzsche defines as, the Appolinian intellect and the Dionysian passion, a euphemism for creation. A dispassionate angel stands atop a statue on a winter morning, watching over Berlin. His name is Damiel (Bruno Ganz): a spiritual guide for the desperate, an eternal spectator of life. The world is gray through his eyes, unable to experience the subtlety of the hues and textures of physical being. He spends eternity exchanging daily observations, listening to the people's thoughts, comforting the dying. He reveals to a fellow angel, Cassiel (Otto Sander), that he is curious to experience life as a human. One day, while observing a circus rehearsal, he is captivated by Marion, a French trapeze artist practicing her routine in an angel costume. Receiving the news that the circus is closing, she feels profoundly alone, but is consoled by Damiel's empathic presence. He falls in love with her: her grace, passion, melancholy. They are kindred spirits longing to find an inextricable part of their soul that is missing. If Damiel can transfigure, perhaps he can fill the void.

Wenders manifests the recurrent theme of division through long camera shots, filmed downward. Note the the opening scene of the statue, the suicide leap from a building, and Marion's rehearsal. In essence, Damiel is the Apollinian force: pensive, logical, and spiritual. (Note the contrast to Federico Fellini, who uses upward shots in order to symbolize the carnal man seeking spirituality.) Division is also depicted when Cassiel follows a disoriented, elderly man against the backdrop of a prominent Berlin Wall. Cinematically, the angels' perspective is in black and white, while human perspective is shot in color, creating visual duality. Note the chromatic shift in Marion's trailer after Damiel disappears. She is the archetypal Dionysian force: sensual, risk-taker, dreamer. Nietzsche proposes that the cataclysmic fusion of the two diametrically opposed forces results in the birth of tragedy. In the end, we see Damiel looking upward at Marion, holding her safety line. He is no longer an immortal chronicler of history. He, like the epic heroes of Greek mythology, has fallen.

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Wings of Desire (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Feature

• WINGS OF DESIRE BLU-RAY (BLU-RAY DISC)

Wings of Desire (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Overview

Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin) is one of cinema’s loveliest city symphonies. Bruno Ganz is Damiel, an angel perched atop buildings high over Berlin who can hear the thoughts—fears, hopes, and dreams—of all the people living below. But when he falls in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, he is willing to give up his immortality to come back to earth to be with her. Made not long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this stunning tapestry of sounds and images, shot in black and white and color by the legendary Henri Alekan, is movie poetry. And it forever made the name Wim Wenders synonymous with film art.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Wim Wenders with DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack • Audio commentary featuring Wenders and actor Peter Falk • The Angels Among Us (2003), a documentary featuring interviews with Wenders, Falk, actors Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander, writer Peter Handke, and composer Jürgen Knieper • Excerpt from: Wim Wenders Berlin Jan. 87, an episode of the French television program Cinéma cinémas, including on-set footage • Interview with director of photography Henri Alekan • Deleted scenes and outtakes • Excerpts from the films Alekan la lumière (1985) and Remembrance: Film for Curt Bois (about the actor who plays Homer in Wings of Desire) • Notes and photos by production designer Heidi Lüdi and art director Toni Lüdi • Trailers • New and improved English subtitle translation • PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Atkinson and writings by Wenders and Handke

Wings of Desire (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Specifications

"There are angels over the streets of Berlin," quotes the movie poster, but these are like no angels you've ever seen. Bundled in dark overcoats, they watch over the city with ears open to the heartbeat of the human soul, listening to the internal musings and yearnings of earthbound humans like existential detectives. In these delicate, astounding scenes we float through the thoughts of dozens Berlin citizens, from the weary and worn to the hopeful and young, as the angels record the magic moments for some heavenly record. But when Damiel (the empathic and sensitive Bruno Ganz) falls in love with an angel of another sort, the lonely trapeze artist Marion (willowy, sad-eyed Solveig Dommartin), he gives up the contemplation and observation of life to experience it himself.

Wim Wenders's most purely romantic film is like poetry on celluloid, a celebration of the transient and fragile moments of being human: the warmth of a cup of coffee on a cold day, the embrace of a friend, the touch of a lover, the rapture of love. Opening with an angel's-eye view of Berlin in silvery black and white (delicately captured by the great cinematographer Henri Alekan, who photographed Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast 40 years earlier), it transforms into a gauzy color world when Damiel "crosses over" by sheer will. Peter Falk plays himself as a fallen angel with a special sensitivity for celestial visitors ("I can't see you, but I know you're there," he proclaims), and Otto Sander, whose smiling eyes brighten a face etched by eons of waiting and watching, is Damiel's partner. Wenders made a sequel in 1993, Faraway, So Close, and Hollywood remade the film as City of Angels with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. --Sean Axmaker

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Customer Reviews

Great cinema - Happy in New Mexico - Santa Fe
The best of the best. Each time you see this film you are amazed again at how beautiful the images are. My favorite? Angels in the library--I never enter a library without thinking of this film--set to the most evocative score.



Criterion On Blu-Ray: Meant To Be - S. Sullivan -
With Valentine's Day approaching, couples are on the lookout for a romantic(but not too girly) film they can watch together. For the ladies, a terrific story. An angel falls in love with a mortal women and makes the ultimate sacrifice: trading in immortality for the love of a good woman. For the men, there's Peter Falk. That's right. One of the stars of "Wings Of Desire" is none other than Columbo himself. If the plot sounds familiar, it should. It was stolen and years later turned into "City Of Angels", with Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan. I enjoyed that film, but it pales in comparison to the phenomanal German masterpiece.






I loved this movie! - Dottie A. Randazzo - Pennsylvania, USA
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