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A Critical Response to Wings of Desire (1987)

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Words: 1037 |

Pages: 2|

6 min read

Published: Mar 3, 2020

Words: 1037|Pages: 2|6 min read

Published: Mar 3, 2020

Wings of Desire opens with views from above of a fragmented Berlin that has been mutilated in World War II. The city still carries the wounds of the war and is unable to recover - the worst part is where the Wall is situated, as the scalpel that opens and divides the skin into two halves, no longer being able to be one again. An angel, who is later introduced as Damiel, stands on the highest part of a destroyed church, observing a devastated Berlin, a city trying to recover from the war and its citizens striving to go back to normal and get their lives back. This entire shot is presented to the viewer in black and white, as if angels and the spectator shared the same colourless world.

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The omniscient view of the film allows the viewer to be a witness of the story, as if (s)he was staring from the outside and being – somehow – left apart from the story. This is the reason why, although the spectator sees through Damiel’s eyes, (s)he remains being his/herself – with his/her own thoughts and feelings. The viewer realizes, as the film goes on, that there is not only one but lots of angels in the city. Damiel is constantly sharing thoughts with a fellow angel, Cassiel, about how different the world is for humans and angels. Later on, as Damiel and Cassiel discuss about the creation – the so-called story of Genesis – these differences make much more sense. Angels have been there forever, so they already existed when glaciers started to melt, when fish appeared followed by all sort of animals.

When the first human appeared, physically looking so much as an angel, Damiel and Cassiel remember how they laughed at them. However, they were shocked when humans discovered how to fight, as it leaded them to war. The spectator should keep in mind that, although angels seem to live idyllic lives and have an extraordinary young appearance, they have incredibly old and wise souls. Angels may look like humans, but they have never been one. Hence, as angels are immortal, they lack the most important thing in a human being, that is his/her mortality. The reason behind how humans are, why they live how they live or why they do the things they do in the way they do it is simply – but not that simple – is because they have a ticking clock reminding them their fleeting nature. Thus, the viewer experiences this mortality and the aiming to live life at its fullest – as all humans do – with scenes full of colours, as if the spectator were looking through a kaleidoscope in vivid colours. Humans are alive, one of the main reasons is because they feel, as it is through suffering that they know they are alive. It is because humans feel sadness that they know happiness and vice versa. Angels, on the other hand, are unable to see in colour or to experience anything from the five senses. Hence, not only angels do not love or feel loved, but neither they can affect human lives. This is what the viewer sees when Damiel, as much as Cassiel, see humans suffer and struggle through life, try to understand and comfort them but angels can only attempt to alleviate human worries, not cure the disease. That is what the spectator sees in the shot where Cassiel and a young man are standing on a rooftop, Cassiel striving to console the man but failing.

At the end, this man ends up committing suicide and Cassiel seems unable to believe so, as if he was shock, but he cannot be, can he?On the bright note, Damiel wants to become human as it is shown in the discussion below between Damiel and Cassiel:Damiel: It's great to live by the spirit, to testify day by day for eternity, only what's spiritual in people's minds. But sometimes I'm fed up with my spiritual existence. Instead of forever hovering above I'd like to feel a weight grow in me to end the infinity and to tie me to earth. I'd like, at each step, each gust of wind, to be able to say "Now. " Now and now" and no longer "forever" and "for eternity. " To sit at an empty place at a card table and be greeted, even by a nod. Every time we participated, it was a pretense. … No, I don't have to beget a child or plant a tree but it would be rather nice coming home after a long day to feed the cat, like Philip Marlowe, to have a fever and blackened fingers from the newspaper, to be excited not only by the mind but, at last, by a meal, by the line of a neck by an ear. To lie! Through one's teeth. As you're walking, to feel your bones moving along. At last to guess, instead of always knowing. To be able to say "ah" and "oh" and "hey" instead of "yea" and "amen. "Cassiel: Yeah, to be able, once in a while, to enthuse for evil. To draw all the demons of the earth from passers-by and to chase them out into the world. To be a savage. Damiel: Or at last to feel how it is to take off shoes under a table and wriggle your toes barefoot, like that.

Cassiel: Stay alone! Let things happen! Keep serious! We can only be savages in as much as we keep serious. Do no more than look! Assemble, testify, preserve! Remain spirit! Keep your distance. Keep your word. Damiel starts to feel attracted to mortality, as he is very intrigued by how humans are. The only way to understand this, is to become human and live a mortal life – with the clock ticking each second, as time goes by.

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Only when Damiel starts to experience some sorts of feelings and seems closer to mortality, that colours start to pop up on the screen. Finally, as Damiel continues to drown more and more into mortality, this popping of colours leads to a screen full of colour. This means that Damiel has finally become human and alive.

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This essay was reviewed by
Dr. Charlotte Jacobson

Cite this Essay

A Critical Response to Wings of Desire (1987). (2020, February 27). GradesFixer. Retrieved March 29, 2024, from https://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/a-critical-response-to-wings-of-desire-1987/
“A Critical Response to Wings of Desire (1987).” GradesFixer, 27 Feb. 2020, gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/a-critical-response-to-wings-of-desire-1987/
A Critical Response to Wings of Desire (1987). [online]. Available at: <https://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/a-critical-response-to-wings-of-desire-1987/> [Accessed 29 Mar. 2024].
A Critical Response to Wings of Desire (1987) [Internet]. GradesFixer. 2020 Feb 27 [cited 2024 Mar 29]. Available from: https://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/a-critical-response-to-wings-of-desire-1987/
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