Compelling, ponderous, exasperating, enigmatic, demanding and beautiful: Wim Wenders' rediscovery of his native Germany from its most symbolic city is all this and more. His spellbinding portrait of Berlin, past and present, is poetry in motion: a haunting, hypnotic masterpiece that lingers in the memory long after its final image fades from the screen.
From the opening aerial shots to the last (admittedly long-winded) soliloquy, the film is a provocative look at a world that has long since lost its innocence, as witnessed by a pair of benevolent guardian angels invisibly cataloguing human daydreams and emotions, and occasionally offering mute comfort in moments of private spiritual crisis. In the divided city of Berlin what they most often overhear are poetic expressions of longing and despair, but it isn't enough to stop one empathetic angel from trading in his wings for a chance to experience all the mundane, earthbound luxuries of mortal life, from something as simple as a cup of hot coffee to something as complicated as falling in love.
In less sensitive hands the idea might never have gone beyond a simple romantic fantasy (as in the inevitable Hollywood remake, starring Nicholas Cage), but Wenders and co-writer Peter Handke are more interested in making the film a vicarious tour of the human condition, overheard in passing: an infant's first joyous observations; the final thoughts of an auto accident victim; the calm resignation of a man on the brink of suicide; and the recollections of an actor (Peter Falk, playing himself, but with a whimsical twist) on location during the making of a war movie.
Wenders' typically moody soul searches aren't always easy to sit through, but the unexpected element of fantasy lifts the film completely out of the ordinary, and the soaring imagery (shot mostly in luminous black and white) goes a long way toward balancing the occasional clutter of repetitive prose-poetry during the sometimes protracted interior monologues. Viewers may find it either exhilarating or annoying, but behind all the angst and alienation is a stubborn, almost childlike faith in the benevolence of human nature.
From the opening aerial shots to the last (admittedly long-winded) soliloquy, the film is a provocative look at a world that has long since lost its innocence, as witnessed by a pair of benevolent guardian angels invisibly cataloguing human daydreams and emotions, and occasionally offering mute comfort in moments of private spiritual crisis. In the divided city of Berlin what they most often overhear are poetic expressions of longing and despair, but it isn't enough to stop one empathetic angel from trading in his wings for a chance to experience all the mundane, earthbound luxuries of mortal life, from something as simple as a cup of hot coffee to something as complicated as falling in love.
In less sensitive hands the idea might never have gone beyond a simple romantic fantasy (as in the inevitable Hollywood remake, starring Nicholas Cage), but Wenders and co-writer Peter Handke are more interested in making the film a vicarious tour of the human condition, overheard in passing: an infant's first joyous observations; the final thoughts of an auto accident victim; the calm resignation of a man on the brink of suicide; and the recollections of an actor (Peter Falk, playing himself, but with a whimsical twist) on location during the making of a war movie.
Wenders' typically moody soul searches aren't always easy to sit through, but the unexpected element of fantasy lifts the film completely out of the ordinary, and the soaring imagery (shot mostly in luminous black and white) goes a long way toward balancing the occasional clutter of repetitive prose-poetry during the sometimes protracted interior monologues. Viewers may find it either exhilarating or annoying, but behind all the angst and alienation is a stubborn, almost childlike faith in the benevolence of human nature.