Director Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire follows angels, primarily Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander), as they go about their business in the divided city of Berlin. And their business is: to witness. Invisible (most of the time), immaterial (generally), and immortal, they mix with the busy and bustling world of Berlin to observe, listen, and record the thoughts and actions of humanity. They appear alongside a huge and constantly shifting cast of people going about their mundane days, connecting with them briefly, then moving on. The film itself is a slick cacophony of their sounds, their thoughts, their fears and desires all laid out simultaneously. But this mechanistic existence, at a remove from all true sensation, must eventually get boring. Damiel begins to wish he could be human, to really feel something at long last, even if it would mean accepting the eventual decrepitude and death that awaits all humans.

Wings of Desire is a rich and widely copied (from basically the first moment its first frame appeared on a movie screen) exploration of the texture and importance of human life. We may be in a historical moment which would benefit from a refresher on the topic. Deeply religious without a drop of doctrine, it is worshipful of the pure experience of being, disconnecting the audience from that experience so organically that we may observe it anew, like putting a urinal in a museum.

Wings of Desire was the first film screened at Tampa Theatre after we became a first-run cinema again in 1988. Good work, us.

Presented as part of BIG PICTURE: A Century of Stories

This screening is held in the Historic Duncan Auditorium. This space utilizes open seating for this event, seat selection is not required.