Review of Wings of Desire (1987) by Paige V — 06 Oct 2014

The movie Wings of Desire is a dull movie that starts out with two men who have a very strange in manner looking down at a city. They watch as people pass and children play. They are unnoticed but somehow the children can see them. These men wonder around the city of Berlin, Germany. They walk up to people and attempt to comfort them. Hey can hear what the people around them are thinking. At first it is not clear what they are doing and there is nothing that is helpful in understanding it. The movie drags on like this, going from a man sitting on a street corner to people reading in a library. It is not until later when a trapeze artist wearing angel wings is shown. This then implants the idea that the two men are angels wondering around the city listening to the thoughts of people that interest them. One of the angels seems to fall in love with the lonely trapeze artist and the film turns into color. This transition shows the human emotion in the angel. The angel has a great desire to be human.

Wings of Desire is roughly a two hour movie that fails to capture the attention of the audience. It is a long, drawn out and it seems to be going nowhere and that there is nowhere to go. It is almost like an astronaut that got separated from his ship and is at a drift with no destination knowing his oxygen will not last long. Wings of Desire was directed by Wim Wenders and was released in 1987. Although I give this movie a two out of five star rating it did win many awards. Some of these consisted of Best Director Award, Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film, and National Society of Film Critics Award. I do not understand how this film received so many awards. But it may just be the culture in time frame that I grew up in.