Synopsis
"Angels perched atop the buildings of Berlin listen in on the innermost thoughts of mere mortals in
Wim Wenders’s lovely, lyrical
Wings of Desire, a soaring high-point of the director’s cinema and a moving, melancholic elegy to a Berlin still divided. Damiel (
Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (
Otto Sander) are brooding, compassionate angels who eavesdrop on the secret pains and fears of ordinary people. When Damiel falls for a beautiful trapeze artist (
Solveig Dommartin), he renounces his immortality to return to earth as a human, hoping for a love that transcends life in the heavens. The stunning cinematography – crisp black-and-white, lurid Technicolor – is by French great
Henri Alekan, whose many credits include
Cocteau’s
Beauty and the Beast." – The Cinematheque
