Every Little Thing I Adore About 'Wings of Desire'

I first saw Wim Wenders’ wonderful film in my first semester of university, on the hunt through the Sight & Sound and They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’s best-of lists. In spite of its revolutionary style and irresistible sincerity, it took me watching it with my best friends a few years later to really get on the level with its magical flow.

Now- I’m almost certain this will bloom into one of my favourite films someday.

 

The scratchy, dollar-bin detail on these old-Hollywood opening credits.

…And a friendly reminder this is the aesthetic that opens a film about ‘angels’.

This flurry of jump cuts, so confidently thrusting us into the film’s abstract process- jumping in and out of minds, reading passing thoughts and discarding them in the same breath, cutting away from birds to soaring aeroplanes- and then into their aisles to listen even closer; all while the luminously restrained score sets a rolling carpet for it all to invite us in…

How aware the children are of the film’s eyes- its angels- and how that recognition mere minutes into the film immediately presses us into its way of seeing things.

“How little I know about this part. Maybe we’ll discover it during the shoot. I’ll get a good costume- that’s half the battle.” Peter Falk- born just a little too late to be a 1940s Noir superstar.

The fact that Wenders lets angels tune into morning radio.

The camera floating out of a window, glancing down at some kids playing, then panning over to another room across the way. There’s a human error in the shaky, seemingly handheld camerawork here distinct from the fluid track and Stedi technique throughout the rest of the film that makes me wonder if this was intentionally shaky- or just a limitation of the location.

Bruno Ganz comforting a woman about to endure the agony of childbirth. The greatest gift director Wim Wenders bestows Wings of Desire- a film that has quite unapologetically careened into the deep end of the ‘art’ category- is his bittersweet sense of warmth. It’s a film without any real story, darting between nameless characters a mile a minute, but always through kind eyes. The conflict is connecting its empathy with the chaotic malaise of modern life.

Ganz’s angel interrupting his friend to point out a flash of young love.

How naturally this beautiful little scenes of the angels trading anecdotes of shimmering little human moments dovetails into the crux of the film; and how in today’s digital world this detached longing for the life behind the glass is more prescient than ever.

How life affirming their omnipotence is played.

The extremely German architecture of this library.

Ganz’s ghostly hand reaching down for a pencil, and the fact he does nothing with it but fiddle to steady himself.

Wenders catching all this in the same shot.

How Tarkovskian this tracking shot along the carriage is, coming to rest at Ganz lending comfort to a suicidal loner- but it’s so beautifully set in Wenders’ own way of seeing things.

These poor kids fishing for valuables with a magnet through sewer grilles, and the way it parallels our two winged friends. Such a great detail.

The delicious surreality of whip-panning to playing kids to an elephant tromping through an empty circus.

The startling, saturated beauty of Wenders’ colour scenes. Against the purposefully flat monochrome we’re settled in with it works particularly well, but the man has always had an eye for almost suffocatingly rich grading in his photography.

The barren desolation of this shot- and the way the crack traces right down to our big-eared friend.

The angels, real and pretend, unknowingly grinning together as she murmurs along to Nick Cave.

Friendly reminder of how much I love films brave enough to let their characters look us right in the eye.

The funny thing about her ramshackle ‘wall of memories’ is that I’ve always wondered if those are actually pictures of her, her siblings, her parents on their wedding day- or just photos of strangers she’s picked up on the way.

The fact that sitting in a sardine-can of a camper-van with a nameless lady and her wordless angel, listening to her talk about nothing for five minutes, is one of the most captivating scenes of the 80s.

The camera penduluming between sidewalk and street as Ganz tries his best to help a dying man out of the dark. His smile makes me wonder if he longs for having a finite flash of life to dart across his mind, before he’s allowed to die.

The way Wings of Desire doesn’t shy away from the scars of the Second World War, sealed under the skin of the German people forever.

This old man’s ‘beautiful’ memories being the ravishing colour of a bomb-ravaged Berlin.

The blocking and design of this shot. This really was a film for the ages.

The way the camera embodies that strange, living feeling of old abandoned places throughout this scene.

Peter Falk trying on hats. A national treasure.

More eerie newsreel stock footage of postwar Berlin, infused with gorgeous colour.

“If I didn’t have it I’d miss it, said the general to the warden”. Wenders captures fragments of voiceover in a way likely part inspired by- and almost certainly later inspirational to- Terrence Malick. While I love Malick’s use of the technique, there’s a grounded personality to even the throwaway lines that fills them with life.

The silence that suddenly punches in over this breathtaking flurry of natural beauty.

The angels walking off together, Rick & Renault style, at the end of this stealth one-er.

“This man has eyes like a racoon... But he has a good hat.”

The visual leitmotif of swarming birds. Lost angels?

How horribly desperate the film turns when it touches death.

The headshot of Falk weighed down on the TV as he watches an interview of himself. And that hat!

The way the angels’ confrontation of modern-day violence ripcords them back to the horrors of World War Two.

The way the film’s lighting and grading grow more extreme as it goes on.

The rubble of this amazing, detailed piece of old architecture sat next to that towering, spotless steel box.

Honestly, Bruno Ganz and Peter Falk is almost too much magic in the same place.

The angel realising his friend’s footprints have made an imprint- and he is free. Regardless of his reaction soon after there’s something so silently joyful about this POV.

The half-bemused, half-scared, barely-holding bliss on our fallen angels face.

…And how elated he is that he can bleed!

The way this stranger just gives Ganz money for coffee without a second thought.

An eternal angel trading in his ancient bronze armour for, well… (it should be noted how uncannily Bruno Ganz reminds me of my wonderful Grandpa here)

Peter Falk immediately knowing Ganz was an angel is just such a special moment.

This very ‘Nighthawks’-esque composition.

Wenders choosing to capture their first meeting almost entirely in one shot. Like Ganz’s angel says: “Days, weeks, months- time!”. Finally- and what a moment to savour.

The other angel watching his old friend and new love. Maybe one day he’ll join them too. Wings of Desire is a one-of-a-kind work that grows and grows the more I see it, and it already swells in my heart right now. I don’t doubt this will be one of my dearest films one day- and what a wonderful time it’ll be to wait.