Wings of Desire

Wings of Desire

Wings of Desire (1987)

Berlin, before the Wall came down, was a city full of people who could not hear each other. Above them moved figures who could hear everything and touch nothing.

WINGS OF DESIRE (1987) follows Damiel and Cassiel, two angels who drift through the city in black and white, catching the private thoughts of strangers on trains, in libraries, in cars stopped at intersections. They comfort the desperate with a hand no one feels. They have watched humanity since before the city had walls, and they are tired of watching.

Damiel falls for Marion, a trapeze artist performing under a shabby circus tent, and the longing to feel what she feels, hunger, cold, the weight of a coat, becomes unbearable. Peter Falk appears as himself, a film star shooting a movie in Berlin, who speaks to Damiel as though he can sense him there.

Wim Wenders shot the angels' world in black and white and let color bleed in only when human eyes take over the frame. Peter Handke wrote the poem that opens the film and recurs through it, spoken like a memory older than the characters themselves.

It is a film about wanting to be mortal, and about a divided city aching to be whole.

About the Film

There are angels on the streets of Berlin.

Directed By
Wim Wenders
Runtime
128 minutes
Released
September 23, 1987
US Theatrical
April 29, 1988
Certification
PG-13
Country
Germany, France
Starring
Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois, Peter Falk
More Credits
Genres
Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Language
English, French, Hebrew, Japanese, Spanish, Turkish, German
Origin
DE
Studios
Road Movies, Argos films, WDR, Wim Wenders Stiftung
Collection
Damiel and Cassiel Collection
Written By
Peter Handke, Richard Reitinger, Wim Wenders, Bernard Eisenschitz
Produced By
Wim Wenders, Anatole Dauman, Ingrid Windisch
Cinematography
Henri Alekan
Music
Jürgen Knieper
Also Starring
Hans Martin Stier, Elmar Wilms, Sigurd Rachman, Beatrice Manowski, Bruno Rosaz
Budget
$2,500,000
Box Office
$3,548,590

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Source: JustWatch

Physical Media

DVDCriterion CollectionUPC 715515046510

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Blu-rayCriterion CollectionUPC 715515046411

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Comments

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    1. Marcia McElligott-Sloan it’s my favorite film of all time- it’s magical and more than any other film, it speaks to me about what really counts in life and the beauty in the everyday. Its cinematography is also stunning. And you will never view Peter Falk quite the same way again. Treat yourself to it…

      2. Mitch Abney You know what ??
        I almost drowned in a FLOOM.
        ( do you know what a floom is ? ) there, near their home.
        Then,on the way to their
        RC MASS, I flipped my English
        racer. OOOOF Maybe
        angels were watching me !?

    2. Marcia McElligott-Sloan I lived in Denver for a few years as a kid – small world! Enjoy the film – I first saw it in an old theater shortly after moving to Austin TX. The film put me in another world for about the next hour.

  3. It was a very good film, but I guess I was too young to really understand it, because I still question some of the themes. It was a bit too arthouse-y for young me, I’d like to definitely give it another look now that I’m older.

      1. Approximately… It means that of the MANY movies I consider favorites, this one is near the top of the very large, and not well defined bunch. Maybe in the top 20 of 200 or something… I don’t actually make lists.

      3. What an odd question. Well defined would imply an actual list with definite inclusions and exclusions and probably a numbered hierarchy. I don’t have such a thing and don’t even assign starred or numbered ratings to films. How can this be so unclear?

  27. When I first saw it in college, I hated it. Found it boring and silly. Thought i wasted my time renting it from the video store.

    But I couldn’t stop thinking about it for years. Snippets of the movie moving in my brain and asking me if I was maybe wrong in my initial opinion? 15 years or so later, I came back to it older and wiser.

    I now consider it one of the greatest films of all time. I own it on Criterion Blu-ray but am considering the upgrade to 4K.

  37. I watched this for the first time last year. I’m glad I waited until I was older as my younger self wouldn’t have appreciated the beauty or the themes within it. The library scene itself is worth the price of admission. Definitely one of the most beautiful and life affirmating films ever made

  42. It IS a great film, and truly uplifting love story. The “remake” in hollywood styler ruined it entirely. Stick with orignal. (BTW Nicholas Cage, and Meg Ryan and the re-written script take a beautiful film and make it a typical tear-jerking, syrupy piece of garbage)

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