Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Sanjeev Waters A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

thinbeach Unseen by the human population, other than those who were once like them, angels wander around bleak Berlin, wondering what its like to be human - to see, to feel, to taste, etc... One falls in love with a beautiful trapeze artist and decides he must become human so as to be with her. How he does this we aren't told, but he does. Once he meets her, he doesn't even need to say a word, she immediately loves him, apparently because he visited her dreams, or some mystical connection. It is an ode to the human experience, with a wonderful transition from observance to experience. The ever flowing camera movement mimics the flight-like nature of angels, and gives the film a dreamy, poetic feel. However all the existentialism becomes quite monotonous, and one can't help but feel it should have been told in half the time. Without a plot it feels aimless, and although the themes are slowly revealed, it is far slower than necessary. It does sink us into the mundane, un-feeling nature of the angels, but it doesn't make for compelling viewing!I can't help but feel there are some cryptic messages behind all this, but like the angels, they are seen only by some, and I shall continue my human existence, invigorating the senses, and wondering what it's all about.

classicsoncall There is a predominantly existentialist theme at the core of "Wings of Desire", and it definitely will appeal to those conflicted in their search for meaning in an absurd world. I went through such a period during my college years and into my Twenties. However there comes a time when one has to face reality and deal with life as it is or one succumbs to a futile existence of melancholy. Such seemed to be the case not only with the many humans observed by the Angel Damiel (Bruno Ganz), but also Damiel himself. As an angel, Damiel and his cohorts spent an eternity observing the human condition, with virtually no appreciation of the joy and freedom life offers. Honestly, this got to be tedious for me after a while, there's only so much pessimistic sentiment I allow myself before getting my mind back on track, and that doesn't take very long now. I did like however that a favorite hangout for the angels seemed to be a public library, a repository if you will of earthly knowledge, though attaining knowledge didn't seem to be necessary for those like Damiel and his close compatriot Cassiel (Otto Sander). It appeared that they were confidently aware of history and the Earthly world around them. It was reassuring that while observing, they did not presume to interfere, if even they could have done so. What was irritating to me however was how so many people who's thoughts were revealed felt that their personal situations trapped them in quiet desperation. As if they didn't have a choice, but they did, and choosing not to do something is in itself a choice. The appearance of Peter Falk in the picture, oddly enough portraying himself, was somewhat of a nice distraction from the overall tone of the picture. Admittedly typecast in his career as detective Colombo, it was humorous to see some young men in the street refer to him by that name, qualifying the idea that it couldn't be him because of the shabby trench coat. Additionally, the momentary sequences that drifted into color during the story were well placed and timely, adding an element of hope to an otherwise solemn and brooding aspect of the story. My main point I guess is that one can question existence about 'Why am I here?' without going overboard, as there comes a point when deciding takes precedence over destiny. With that realization, one can live in the now instead of agonizing over an infinity of choices.

victoriabailey20 We all want something in this life, a burning desire for more or what we cannot have. Even someone who has everything still longs for more. Much like, in the movie "Wings of Desire". Therefore it came as no surprise when the main character Damiel, an angel, longs to be human, in order to be with the mortal women he falls in love with. Though this movie sounds like it has great potential, do not be conned into thinking it's something worth seeing. The story line is amusing, but overall it is two and a half hours of confusion and disappointment. The viewer would assume the overall plot would be very predictable if the story was simply an angel who falls in love with a mortal, but that is not the case in this film. The director of this film wanted it to go more in depth. In order to do that,t the movie has over ninety plus minutes of black and white commentary of the thoughts of everyday people. Through this, adds emphasis to what the angel's go through and observe, this portion of the movie is extremely dragged out. Most of the commentary is irrelevant to the plot of the movie, and it confuses the viewer as to what the story is. Even when one of the main character in the movie, the trapeze artist, appears the film continues to go off subject. This makes the viewer wonder what their main focus should be on.As for the acting in the movie, this should be rated as decent. Decent in the sense that the parts in this film are relatively easy to portray. Majority of the characters in the film, are simply standard by passer, which can be played by anyone. As for the two main angels, their parts were played well enough, but even a majority of their character is emotionless. The overall all look of the angels being dark and mysterious was chosen well in the appearance of the two men. The look for the main female actress was also matched well with the character being portrayed. She gives off a look of youth and innocence and when speaking her dialog she does well in seducing the audience with her eyes and voice. The combination of her looks and the look of Damiel, is an awkward combination. His appearance being much older and more mature than hers, makes them an awkward pair for the audience to connect to.The setting choice for the movie, works for and against it. Berlin being chosen as the city the story takes place, makes you wonder right off if the movie is based on what's going on at the time. Though that aspect adds more interest in the thoughts and emotions of the everyday people the angels observe, it only add to the confusion on what your focus should be on. If the German title for the movie "The Skies of Heaven over Berlin", would have been kept, the viewer would immediately think the movie had everything to do with what tragedy was taking place in Berlin at the time and would draw attention away from the actual plot of the movie.Another major point of confusion in the movie is the question of who's, what? When the Damiel transitions into a human, we find out that the English actor Peter Fauc is also a former angel himself. We know this because he can sense their presence when the angels are around him. With that information, who's to say the main female actress is not former angel herself? There is no evidence in the film that says she not, but there is evidence that says she could be. For instance when she knew she was looking for a man but did not know who, and when she spoke alone in the movie it was as if she knows someone was listening. Same way Peter Fauc did when he sensed the presence of an angel around him. Also, towards the very end of the movie she knew exactly what man to go to in the bar, and her closing speech was implying she knew who he was all along and that they were going to meet? This is all evidence that supports that she could have also been a former angel herself, which leaves the viewer with even more confusion as to the characterization in the movie.The overall rating for the movie Wings of Desire would be a three out of five stars. The acting and overall story of the movie is not a complete lost cause. The main downfall for the films is its pacing and pointless scenes, which leads to much confusion and loss of interest throughout the very beginning on. The story line has great potential, therefore this movie would do great if remade the right way.

chaos-rampant This is the project great makers undertake without exception from Welles to Iwai; if those things which you can't touch with the hand can be felt to exist, yearning, memory, thought, if right now you can recall an image, it means this space extends around us and is a part of us, so how can this be surrounded with the camera, acknowledged beneath the story and allowed to float as life?It's a great joy to have this, Wenders repeatedly tried. He knows Buddhism, how narratives of the mind obscure a true perception, how dust settles on mirrors. He may or not know that both Buddhists and contemporaneous Greeks early on identified liberating wisdom as the right use of appearances, the link is Alexander's travel to India. And he must know that since the Greeks divinity in the West, apprehension of god, has been implicitly woven with the mind that attempts to transcend itself.So Wenders here is at his most ambitious about this, liberation in life, about death and (literal) god we can only have imaginations anyway. One of these imaginations is used here, the notion of angels in the heavens, but this is only the tool though for floating observation of life unhindered by story, to swim into narratives of mind, then see if we can push beyond and transcend.So an angelic eye swoops down into murky life, the place is Berlin as it contemplates wounds and walls. What do we see there?Our eye floats from one life to the next, one person to another, on one level the film offers a contemporary tapestry of German anxieties. On another the device lets us see more clearly into the nature of these anxieties - as we approach characters we're flooded by that extended self lost in thought, nothing but disappointment, vexation, desire. Parents fret about their son's loud music in the next room, a young acrobat worries that her circus dream may have amounted to nothing.Internal narration. This is typical Wenders, that side of him that keeps me at bay - Chris Marker in Sans Soleil playfully unfolds ribbons of remembrance, Tarkovsky rich clouds of appearance as they calmly empty out, Wenders can be as evocative as both but chooses to plod in rumination. The monologues grate as in previous films, they're too long. But he also reaches out for more.The higher ('angelic') view that brushes with earthly despair but flies off again finds no purpose or solace and only cyclical suffering - what the Buddhists call samsara. All considered, Wenders offers a powerful rendition of mind. Mind as the view that fleets from one thought, one story, to the next. Suffering as rumination and as inability to escape narration.Good, so far. Wenders being German can only feel the burden of history pressing on him, silly zeit and sein. But then finally we have the return to things as one of the angels decides to enter time and mortality. So how does Wenders enter this shift?If we could somehow only know this ethereal life of pure spirit in eternal peace that we've always yearned for, a disembodied mind that hovers above things without ever getting tangled up with them (all our notions of an afterlife converge on this), what would we think? Touch would be a profound mystery, having a body that feels wind or heat. I can't stress enough the importance of limits, it's what energizes life, that I don't know all, that I can be surprised and curious, that I can travel from here to there and discover, that it's all in flux and changing, it's why this whole circus matters.So I can see him stressing all the important realizations. Touch, being free to tangle with things and love. Spontaneous appreciation.I find myself rooting for this German as he shucks off the worry about meaning to be able to find it in the tremendous richness of things as they come to be and vanish again, what Herzog for thirty years had to travel to the most absurd corners to witness and pilgrimage, wash logic with doing. What Tarkovsky meditated inwards in memory, Marker in bemused preoccupation with revolution (never attached like Godard), cats and Tokyo.But Wenders meets his own limits once more. Whereas all these guys could transcend, Wenders only limps. A bit of wandering but without real wonder. In place of any of the small possible encounters he could create around Berlin, he gives us a Nick Cave concert again - style. The camera tracks forth and back in a crowd - style. The two lovers finally find each other - but swap monologues again of stale profundity.More dust. Now the Buddhist achievement of The Passenger becomes apparent.