Review of Wings of Desire (1987) by Fox A — 18 Oct 2017

Wings of Desire is the longest, most nauseating piece of self congratulatory garbage I have ever seen in my entire life. The movie begins with Bruno Ganz, dressed in a sad-looking trench coat atop the edge of a presumably high building. Suddenly, a pair of angelic wings surface around his back. The forced explanation of the fact that this is a movie about angels was thoroughly uninspired. Seeing as how those wings never appear again in the film, where some may have seen a symbol of an angel, I saw Wim Wenders desperately trying to drive home the point that his film was about angels before dragging us into over two hours of angsty, melancholic bullshit.

The angels in Wings of Desire don't seem to have anything special about them, other than the fact that they can intrude on the unrealistically eloquent thoughts of the citizens of Berlin, without being seen by anyone other than children and some dogs. We're immediately left with a trail of ambiguity and unanswered questions. We find ourselves wondering what the distinction is between adults and children, and when children can stop seeing the angels. We frequently see the angels perched on the rooftops of buildings in Berlin, and even see them jump off, but are never offered an explanation of what happens in between: how did they climb these titanic, unscalable monuments? And when they did hit the ground after plummeting the 50-foot drop, did they stand up again without reacting? We're asked to excuse the technicalities, to avoid the need for extending this movie which already drags on, and to make room for the gloomy, dejected scenes of being reminded how sad the lives of everyone around us really are.

We follow the angel we saw at the beginning of the film, Damiel (Bruno Ganz), and his occasional meetings with what seems to be his angelic cohort, Cassiel (Otto Sander). We're overwhelmed by the monotonous drone of the thoughts of passersby, as the angels listen in to their minds, many of which seem to add no progression to the story whatsoever, and are only included to make us feel miserable, and to harp on the fact that nobody really enjoys life. A short scene of a young woman anxiously skipping on the sidewalk, while we listen to her nervous thoughts, for example, seems to only serve the purpose of making sure we know the artistic value of the film, and to remind us, once again, that even this unimportant woman to whom we have no emotional connection or attachment, has a sorrowful and woebegone life.

We get it, life is awful. And if I didn't already know this before, I'm certain of that fact now that I've seen this film. I didn't need to be reminded of it by a repetitive sequence of Wim Wenders patting himself on the back, showing how great he is at making people look unhappy. Well, he did a great job of it with me, that's for sure. The entire first third of the movie could have been condensed into ten minutes of explanation, showing that the angels read thoughts, but all those thoughts are unhappy. We see within the first few moments of this section that Damiel and Cassiel yearn for the ability to experience life through the eyes of the people they observe, and so for the next fourty-five minutes, we feel like we're watching paint dry. It's monotonous and pointless, and serves nothing to advance the plot.

It isn't until we meet Marion (Solveig Dommartin), that we start to expect something more from the pointless drivel, but alas, we only just start on yet another pointless journey. One that will lead us to burying our face in our hands, and wondering why we didn't buy tickets to see RoboCop instead.

The one saving factor was the cinematography of a beautifully, void Berlin, but that wasn't enough to save the sickening mess that was the rest of the film. The brief scenes of an aerial view over Berlin served as a nice intermission where we could rub our eyes, and recover from the damage inflicted upon us by the rest of the film. I'll say one thing for this film, and that is that I did feel attracted to the romanticized Berlin. The black and white complemented the gloomy look of the city.

Brave try Wim Wenders, but you have failed. Bon chance.