Wings of Desire (DVD)

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You know how sometimes a small film can unexpectedly sweep you up and carry you away, without your even realizing it's happening? Such a film is German filmmaker Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire," a 1987 fantasy about the comingling of angels and mortals. It's a fascinating and enchanting character study and moral lesson that never preaches but gently transports you to a better place and a far more comfortable feeling about life.

Co-written and directed by Wenders ("The American Friend," "Paris, Texas") after being inspired by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke's verses about angels, "Wings of Desire" is the filmmaker's observance of the smaller joys of life and living, the things most of us pass over. It's a kind of "Our Town" for the late twentieth century, but instead of an omniscient stage manager showing us the living and the dead, Wenders uses angels. No, don't leave. The gimmick works.

Wenders' idea in the movie is that angels live amongst us, mostly observing us but sometimes inspiring and comforting us, and they've been around for longer than Man has been on Earth. The film's main character is a sad-faced angel, Damiel (Bruno Ganz), who as the film opens is beginning to long for mortal life. As an eternal spiritual being, he finally desires the ways of earthly living. The situation makes a convenient conceit for Wenders' parable about the importance of appreciating life.

In Wenders' world, it seems only children, in their innocence, can sense the presence of angels and on occasion see them. And only humans can see the colors of the world; angels see only in black and white. So be prepared to watch most of the film in black-and-white since we mainly see things through Damiel's eyes. Anyway, the angel wants to be a child again, if he ever was one, and see things fresh and new and real. "Isn't life under the sun just a dream?" asks a child, and "Why am I me?" and "Why am I here?" When we grow up we forget or ignore such questions, but Damiel wants to be able to pose such inquiries and discover the pleasures of finding the answers for himself.

The film, of course, provides no such answers to any of life's great mysteries, except to suggest that love pervades all human activity and remains the overriding factor in keeping all of us civilized, happy, and functioning.

The setting is Berlin before the fall of Communism, a divided city symbolizing the division in all of us between thought and action. The more Damiel observes the Earth and its people, the more he longs to be a part of it, rather than hovering forever around it as a spiritual being. He wants to be excited, as he says, "not just by the mind but, at last, by a meal and the line of a neck; by an ear." Yes, Damiel is falling in love, not only with the prospect of life and living but with a woman.

Damiel's partner angel, Cassiel (Otto Sander), doesn't see things quite so romantically or idealistically as Damiel, but he appears to understand Damiel's yearnings. The woman Damiel falls for is a trapeze artist with a small, traveling circus. Her name is Marion (Solveig Dommartin), a beautiful but lonely French woman who sadly aches for love. Damiel first comes to her in a dream. The only other character of note in the story is an American movie star who's come to Berlin to make a film. Peter Falk plays himself, an actor who mysteriously senses and understands Damiel in a most surprising way.

"Wings of Desire" is atmospheric and leisurely, taking its time getting around. The film builds on ideas rather than actions, a strongly philosophical and highly personal piece of filmmaking. Wenders' wonderfully mobile and highly fluid camera direction helps the mood by gliding effortlessly through rooms, buildings, and the city, while a sparse and haunting musical soundtrack accompanies the scenes.