Review of Wings of Desire (1987) by Ryan H — 07 Aug 2010

This is one of the most perfectly shot films. Watching this I felt like an angel myself, listening to the thoughts of others, wanting to reach out and give them comfort. Bruno Ganz is perfect in the lead role as an angel who is tired of seeing others live and wants to witness everything himself, or create his own history as he says.

I understand this film well enough after the first viewing, but I would like to see it again because I feel like I'm missing something. I know that the lack of plot is on purpose in this film, the whole point is to show us all life and the true purpose of love.

However, I don't know if it all comes together for a single film, and I don't know if having that many scenes drawn out was a good idea. I could have been restless and surprised by how the film was completely different than I expected, but this is just how I felt after the first viewing.

It does not make the movie awful. I think it's innovative and beautiful, more like a poem such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Fountain. Plus there are many things for people to enjoy about Berlin.

Showing the lack of true human pleasure was perfect by the way of having the angel's perspective as black and white with a blue tint, and then whenever we see things from human perspective it was in color.

Peter Falk was great as well. I don't believe that his character is evil, but he truly loves human life for all of it's perfections and imperfections and he knows how to get a tempted angel to become human.

And just like real life, this movie has flaws. I'm glad it's talked about so much because it truly is an original film, but I don't know if it's as great as everyone makes it out to be.