The sky over Wenders's war-scarred Berlin is full of gentle angels wearing trench coats who listen to the tortured thoughts of mortals and try to comfort them. One wishes to become mortal after falling in love with a beautiful trapeze artist. Peter Falk, as himself, assists in the transformation by explaining the simple joys of a human experience, such as the sublime combination of coffee and cigarettes. The result is a film that is simultaneously sentimental and cerebral.
DVD Features:
Region 1
Widescreen - 1.66
Audio:
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo - English, French, German
Dolby Digital 5.1 - English, French, German
Subtitles - English, French
Distributor Notes: WINGS OF DESIRE (Der Himmel uber Berlin) is one of cinema's loveliest city symphonies. Bruno Gatz is Damiel, an angel perched atop buildings high over Berlin who can hear the thoughts - fears, hopes, and dreams - of all the people living below. But when he falls in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, he is willing to give up his immortality to come back to earth to be with her. Made not long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this stunning tapestry of sounds and images, shot in black and white and color by the legendary Henri Alekan, is movie poetry. And it forever made the name Wim Wenders synonymous with film art.
Stars
Bruno Ganz: German actor, WINGS OF DESIRE
Solveig Dommartin: French German actress, WINGS OF DESIRE (1987)
Otto Sander: Actor, FAR AWAY SO CLOSE, WINGS OF DESIRE
Peter Falk: American actor, COLUMBO
Hans Martin Stier: German actor, WINGS OF DESIRE
Director
Wim Wenders: Director,screenwriter,producer, WINGS OF DESIRE
Producer
Wim Wenders: Director,screenwriter,producer, WINGS OF DESIRE
Anatole Daumon:
Screenwriter
Wim Wenders: Director,screenwriter,producer, WINGS OF DESIRE
Peter Handke: Novelist/Screenwriter
Composer
Jurgen Kneiper: Score, "Wings of Desire"
Editor
Peter Przygodda: Editor
Director of Photography
Henri Alekan: French Director Of Photography
Featured
Crime and the City Solution: Goth band, frequents Wim Wenders movies
Featured
Nick Cave:
Production Designer
Heidi Ludi: Art Director/"The Bear"
Review 1:
"...Visualized through some inspiring cinematography..."
Source: Film Comment
p.60-5 07/01/1987
Review 2:
"...The film evokes a mood of reverie, elegy and meditation....You're seduced into the spell of this movie....CITY OF ANGELS is a skillful romantic comedy..."
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
p.5 04/12/1998
Review 3:
"...Legendary cinematographer Henri Alekan shot the film's brooding first half in emotionally stirring monochrome....[Later] this truly original piece of work switches to color..."
Source: USA Today
p.3D 09/01/1989
Review 4:
"...A magnificent film of sublime beauty and contagious optimism....Alekan's visual power, softly swirling and mysterious, is unsurpassed..."
Source: Los Angeles Times
p.C10 05/20/1988
Review 5:
"...Wender's response to each of the Berlin locations, captured so evocatively by Henri Alekan's monochrome photography, reveals a profound understanding of their cultural significance and poetic potential..."
Source: Sight and Sound
p.64 12/01/2002
Review 6:
"...[WINGS OF DESIRE] has a loveliness of conception that, for a time, keeps it as feathery as an angel's wings....Wender's mpst ambitous effort yet, and [it] certainly radiates immense promise..."
Source: New York Times
p.C15 04/29/1988