Hacker Cinema
Wings of Desire
Der Himmel über Berlin
1987 · Film · 128 min
Part of Damiel and Cassiel Collection
Directed by Wim Wenders
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.
9 positive3 neutralfrom 12 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
12 comments on Hacker News
Wings of Desire is a beautiful movie. It's probably my all time favorite. Bruno Ganz is sensational in it and Peter Falk has some great scenes, too.
Have you ever seen Wim Wenders’ original, “Wings of Desire”?
I heartily recommend it to anyone who is irrationally opposed to state surveillance, (or, by extension if you simply resent the idea of an omniscient God) just because it is an achingly beautiful and true film that proposes a more reasonable viewpoint.
Wenders filmed scenes in Japanese capsule pod hotels of the time ... it's relative to be sure but IMHO these are closer to the rentable pods depicted in the article than the scenes from the Jodorowsky movie.
The motivation here was admittedly to respond to one arthouse film drop with another.
I'm kind of old and while not in the film and TV business I've been tangential enough to work as an extra, tech runner, location support etc for various productions - notably in Berlin for Wings of Desire and in Australia (where I live) for some of the central Australian location work for Until the End of the World.
( Australian band in Wings of Desire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPf6SWcENWo
)
Dark was terrific. Time travels and parallel worlds. Deutschland '83 (in particular) but also '86 and '89 were quite decent - about a young German becoming a Stasi superagent of sorts.
Oh, and while you're at it, get Das Boot if you haven't already, also available as a TV miniseries.
As for movies, you could do a lot worse than picking up a few Wim Wenders movies - say, Der Himmel über Berlin or Alice in den Städten.
Oh, if you pick up Der Himmel über Berlin, consider picking up In weiter Ferne, so nah! as well. Same universe, but more run-of-the-mill than Himmel über Berlin, which is probably the most poetically beautiful movie I have ever seen.
I share the same experience of preferring subtitles over dubs, coming from an English country. This is most popular with Japanese media like anime (like movies like 'Your Name'/'Kimi no wa na' or Attack on Titan). It also fits for foreign language films (e.g. preferring the original German for The Lives of Others/Wings of Desire).
Crucially, outside of preference, subtitles are occasionally necessary for translating text on the screen (e.g. on building signs, newspaper front pages, posters, chalkboard writing), as information is conveyed solely through writing without spoken dialogue.
For example, consider the chalkboard scene in "Komi san can't communicate": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoH8I-NC5tM . It's key to the story that a character has trouble communicating verbally, so subtitles are essential to understand the written communication on the chalkboard. (You can then compare to a more extensively subtitled version that translates all the text on the board; good subtitles make a difference to storytelling: https://old.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/qdjgba/the_blackboard_scene_komi_cant_communicate/).
For an extra blessing of Peter Falk should look for Wim Wender's Wings of Desire. It's an incredibly touching addition to an already profound film.
https://youtu.be/u7s-H4EqP4I
Some of the films recommended in this thread..
- The Nice Guys
- I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore
- Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
- Don't Worry
- He Won't Get Far on Foot
- The Favourite (2018)
- Druk (2020)
- Amélie
- The Lobster
- Turist (2014)
- Parasite
- El Hoyo (The Platform)
- Quo Vadis
- Aida?
- 200 Meters
- Luzzu
- El robo del siglo (The Heist of the Century)
- Knives Out
- Us
- Get Out
- "Tokyo Story" (1953, Yasujirō Ozu)
- Aleksei German's Hard to be A God
- Edward Yang's A Better Summer's Day
- Maren Ade's Toni Erdman
- Luca Guadagnino's I Am Love
- Wings of Desire
- Do the Right Thing
- Drugstore Cowboy
- Gates of Heaven
- Beauty and the Beast
- Life Is Sweet
Roger Ebert wrote an essay [0] in 1992 reflecting on his career as a critic. He writes
>In the past 25 years I have probably seen 10,000 movies and reviewed 6,000 of them. I have forgotten most of those films, I hope, but I remember those worth remembering, and they are all on the same shelf in my mind.
Overall, he seems never to have lost the joy of watching movies. A relevant quote:
>When you go to the movies every day, it sometimes seems as if the movies are more mediocre than ever, more craven and cowardly, more skillfully manufactured to pander to the lowest tastes, instead of educating them. Then you see something absolutely miraculous. Something like "Wings of Desire," or "Do the Right Thing," or "Drugstore Cowboy," or "Gates of Heaven," or "Beauty and the Beast," or "Life Is Sweet," and on your way home through the White Hen Pantry you look distracted, as if you had just experienced some kind of a vision.
[0]: https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/reflections-after-25-years-at-the-movies
Hollywood does this with productions from other countries, for example "City of Angels" [1] for "Der Himmel über Berlin" [2], or "Vanilla Sky" for "Abre los ojos" [4]. And not only do the use American casts, they re-shoot the whole movie.
The result is inferior most of the time.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Angels_%28film%29
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_of_Desire
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_Sky
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Your_Eyes_%281997_film%29
I will always remember him best as the angel Damiel in Wings of Desire. An absolutely beautiful thing, and he’ll be missed.
My favorite vignette from that film, alongside Peter Falk(!!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qo3F-0keq8
I can’t see you, but I know you’re here. I feel it. You’ve been hanging around since I got here. I wish I could see your face. Just look into your eyes and tell you how good it is to be here. Just to touch something. See that’s cold; that feels good. Or to smoke. Have coffee. Or if you do it together, that’s fantastic. Or to draw. You know, you take a pencil and you make a dark line, then you make a light line and together it’s a good line. Or when your hands are cold and you rub them together. See that’s good, that feels good. There’s so many good things, but you’re not here. I’m here. I wish you were here. I wish you could talk to me. . .cuz I’m a friend. Compañero.
Recommend this film? Was unaware of it love Wings of Desire
Not related to the topic but this reminded how much I loved the film named wings of desire.