WINGS OF DESIRE - DVD review

You know how sometimes a small film can unexpectedly sweep you up and carry you away, without your even realizing it's happening? Such a film is German filmmaker Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire," a 1987 fantasy about the comingling of angels and mortals. It's a fascinating and enchanting character study and moral lesson that never preaches but gently transports you to a better place and a far more comfortable feeling about life.

Co-written and directed by Wenders ("The American Friend," "Paris, Texas") after being inspired by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke's verses about angels, "Wings of Desire" is the filmmaker's observance of the smaller joys of life and living, the things most of us pass over. It's a kind of "Our Town" for the late twentieth century, but instead of an omniscient stage manager showing us the living and the dead, Wenders uses angels. No, don't leave. The gimmick works.

Wenders' idea in the movie is that angels live amongst us, mostly observing us but sometimes inspiring and comforting us, and they've been around for longer than Man has been on Earth. The film's main character is a sad-faced angel, Damiel (Bruno Ganz), who as the film opens is beginning to long for mortal life. As an eternal spiritual being, he finally desires the ways of earthly living. The situation makes a convenient conceit for Wenders' parable about the importance of appreciating life.

In Wenders' world, it seems only children, in their innocence, can sense the presence of angels and on occasion see them. And only humans can see the colors of the world; angels see only in black and white. So be prepared to watch most of the film in black-and-white since we mainly see things through Damiel's eyes. Anyway, the angel wants to be a child again, if he ever was one, and see things fresh and new and real. "Isn't life under the sun just a dream?" asks a child, and "Why am I me?" and "Why am I here?" When we grow up we forget or ignore such questions, but Damiel wants to be able to pose such inquiries and discover the pleasures of finding the answers for himself.

The film, of course, provides no such answers to any of life's great mysteries, except to suggest that love pervades all human activity and remains the overriding factor in keeping all of us civilized, happy, and functioning.

The setting is Berlin before the fall of Communism, a divided city symbolizing the division in all of us between thought and action. The more Damiel observes the Earth and its people, the more he longs to be a part of it, rather than hovering forever around it as a spiritual being. He wants to be excited, as he says, "not just by the mind but, at last, by a meal and the line of a neck; by an ear." Yes, Damiel is falling in love, not only with the prospect of life and living but with a woman.

Damiel's partner angel, Cassiel (Otto Sander), doesn't see things quite so romantically or idealistically as Damiel, but he appears to understand Damiel's yearnings. The woman Damiel falls for is a trapeze artist with a small, traveling circus. Her name is Marion (Solveig Dommartin), a beautiful but lonely French woman who sadly aches for love. Damiel first comes to her in a dream. The only other character of note in the story is an American movie star who's come to Berlin to make a film. Peter Falk plays himself, an actor who mysteriously senses and understands Damiel in a most surprising way.

"Wings of Desire" is atmospheric and leisurely, taking its time getting around. The film builds on ideas rather than actions, a strongly philosophical and highly personal piece of filmmaking. Wenders' wonderfully mobile and highly fluid camera direction helps the mood by gliding effortlessly through rooms, buildings, and the city, while a sparse and haunting musical soundtrack accompanies the scenes.

It is at times a sad and melancholy film, but so can life be sad and melancholy. Moreover, there is no mistaking the film's overarching purpose to celebrate the simple pleasures of existence, the little things, the ones we take for granted until we lose them--things like raindrops, or the sun, a poem, a kind word, a favorite cafe. The film is captivating and, while admittedly slow paced, carries the viewer away with its vision.

Video:
The black-and-white portions of the movie, which occupy about 80% of the screen time, appear more a deep brown and white, don't reveal a lot of detail in the darker areas, and are a bit grainy. When the picture switches to color, the hues are a little garish, especially at first and I assume purposely so, finally settling into a more normal, though still very slightly blurred, mode by the movie's end. The screen size measures an anamorphic ratio of approximately 1.74:1 across a conventional television, with some minor flicker in densely compacted lines.

Audio:
The audio options are Dolby Digital 5.1 or Dolby Stereo. In neither case does one hear much information being fed to the surround speakers, with the exception of musical resonance. This is understandable, as the film is almost entirely dialogue and image driven, with little or no overt action taking place. The sound is sharper and clearer in DD 5.1, however, than in Dolby Stereo, and if a person has the capability of reproducing DD 5.1, its better focus, including musical ambience in the rear channels, is the best bet.

Extras:
MGM have labeled this disc a "Special Edition," and, in fact, it contains a healthy set of bonus items. The first is an audio commentary with director Wim Wenders and co-star Peter Falk that is better than most in that the two speakers are both informative and entertaining. Wenders is particularly modest and searching in his comments. Then, there's an excellent, forty-three minute documentary on the making of the film, "The Angels Among Us," with lots of behind-the-scenes material and current cast and crew interviews. In it Wenders calls his film a "homecoming movie" and tells us the production took shape in a kind of free-form, improvisational manner, without a formal script. Maybe he was inspired by angels, I don't know. Following the documentary are thirty-two minutes worth of deleted scenes, narrated by Wenders; an interactive map of key locations in the film; and a gallery of advertising artwork. There are thirty-two scene selections available, plus two theatrical trailers and a Wim Wenders promo. English, French, and German are heard as spoken languages on the DD 5.1 track and English and German on the Dolby Stereo track, with a choice of English, French, or German subtitles. Actually, you don't have a choice of spoken languages; the film is meant to be spoken in three different languages by various people, and that's what you get. Unless you understand German, especially, be prepared for using subtitles.

Parting Thoughts:
"Wings of Desire" was so well received it won Wenders a Best Director award at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival and engendered a Hollywood remake in 1998 with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. The remake wasn't bad, but it didn't have the sweet, gently lyrical quality of Wenders'original film, which is less a romance and more an outright celebration of life than its American counterpart. "Wings" builds slowly, like a poem, and takes a modicum of patience to appreciate. If you're not into that kind of thing, it might be a chore. Put it this way: Walt Whitman would have loved it.