Wings of Desire - Wim Wenders
A film co-written by Austrian novelist Peter Handke and German filmmaker Wim Wenders about an angel in Berlin who longs to be mortal might sound like difficult, pretentious viewing. And for some, it might well be, but to me it is the most lyrical, beautiful film of them all. What if I told you Peter Falk and Nick Cave star as themselves and the cinematography is among the finest you will see? Still not convinced? Well, all I can say is that this is a film that resonates and reverberates inside long after you have seen it. It is in essence a layered, nuanced poem set to film (based loosely in part on Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies) and manages to tackle profound truths about love, humanity, history, mortality and sense of place. The central poem by Handke, Das Lied vom Kindsein, is a masterpiece of writing in its own right and truly sings in harmony with the film overall and asks us to see the beauty of the world through pure innocent eyes. How we see, after all, is how we live.
"When the child was a child, it didn’t know that it was a child, everything was soulful, and all souls were one"