Wings of Desire

Emily Housel4.5

angels are alive and well and can always be found at nick cave concerts

Rida4.5

When I was a child, my mother told me that no matter where I was, there would be two angels on either side of me: one to write down all the good things I had done, another to write down all the bad. When I died, the angels would take these books to God, and God would decide whether I would go to heaven or hell. My shoulders were heavy for days afterward. I felt haunted – hunted, in fact, and I couldn’t tell my mother, because she would know about my guilt and think that I was bad. I eventually forgot about the nosy angels, but I wish my religion had spoken of guardian angels – those silent, everlasting beings who look over you, just to make sure you’re all right. I suppose it doesn’t matter to these angels whether you’re good or bad; they just want to keep you safe when your parents cannot.Wings of Desire doesn’t push an ideology – it never even mentions God – and yet, it is full to the brim with religious fervor, with the kind of philosophy that should be in our holy books – the idea that we are blessed to be human. Yes, we’re blessed, even if we are filled with anger and sadness and want, even if we are horrible to ourselves and to each other, even if the world is full of war and death. We’re blessed because we can taste and touch and laugh, just as our ancestors could. We’re blessed because we can feel our feet on the ground.In Wings of Desire, the angels hover over the city, far above the buildings and the cars. They float among the clouds. They are spared from the pain of being human, and yet they are jealous. Of us! Imagine. They are jealous because we can feel the wind on our faces, because we can dance in the rain. They hear our dark, heavy, endless thoughts, and still they are jealous. They would brave mortality because their own lives hold only eternal loneliness.“I’ve stood outside the world long enough. I want to enter into the History of the World, or even just hold an apple in my hand.” To the angels, these two disparate desires are one and the same. As for humans, well, not all of us can enter into the history of the world, but we all can certainly hold an apple in our hand, admire its scarlet luster, bite into it and savor the way its waxy skin breaks apart to reveal the white flesh inside. Perhaps true enlightenment is simply to realize that you’re alive.Wings of Desire was one of those rare film experiences that had me in raptures of delight and pain all at once. I ached while I watched it, and yet I smiled, too. The first half hour is simply sublime, as is the last half hour. The middle portion isn't quite so perfect, but because it's sandwiched by such startling beauty, it's an almost negligible complaint on my part. When I watch it again after a few years, I hope I can bring enough wisdom to the film to be able to understand it far more deeply than I do today.There are only a handful of films I’d consider mandatory viewing for everybody everywhere. Safety Last! would be on that list, as would Modern Times and City Lights, and The 400 Blows and any other film which makes the world look achingly beautiful, any film that is mood made tangible, emotion turned solid, and thought expressed so perfectly that the experience of watching such a film renders us nearly speechless with something like true happiness, because finally, someone someplace understands.Wings of Desire is one such film. It expresses everything – simply everything – about what it means to be human, and it makes me feel profoundly grateful to be alive. It is about religion and imperfection, love and desire, hurt and ecstasy, and it reveals that these pairs are in fact the same thing. Wings of Desire shows us what it means to be human: to forever remain in complete obliviousness of all the gifts that have been granted to us.

Timcop5.0

What the film doesn't explicitly state is that the best part about becoming human is losing that anthropology professor ponytail.