Film Comment, 07/01/1987, p.60-5, "...Visualized through some inspiring cinematography..."
USA Today, 09/01/1989, p.3D, "...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..."
New York Times, 04/29/1988, p.C15, "...[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..."
Chicago Sun-Times, 04/12/1998, p.5, "...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..."
Sight and Sound, 12/01/2002, p.64, "...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..."
Los Angeles Times, 05/20/1988, p.C10, "...A magnificent film of sublime beauty and contagious optimism....Alekan's visual power, softly swirling and mysterious, is unsurpassed..."
Distributor Note
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.
Release Note
Blu-ray Disc Features:
Region [unknown]
Product Notes
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.
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