Wings of Desire

After an Easter severely lacking in bunnies and chocolate it is time to catch up on my blogging on the HCJ topics.

In week four we were given the screening of a film entitled Wings Of Desire. I am of the opinion that is a good thing I didn't blog in the immediate aftermath of the initial viewing of this film. On first viewing I found it not to my style or tastes whatsoever. The film seemed to drag without events of real notice and I have concentrating on it a struggle. However, with hindsight I can appreciate the beauty and importance this piece has an example of existential film making.

Put simply, existentialism has two sides to it. One side is that of horrifying angst, questioning the meaning of your very existence. The other side is the much more uplifting outlook of making what you want with your life. Wings of Desire acknowledges both of these arms of existentialism. We hear the refrain that is repeated throughout the film of someone asking themselves, 'why am I here and not there? Why am I me and not him?' This sort of questioning can lead to a terrifying angst-ridden existence, or an uplifting existence with the realisation that you are able to make what you want of your life, without the need to question anything. It conveys a personal liberation that being nothing gives scope to be everything.

The film is set against the backdrop of 1980's Berlin and follows two angels Damiel and Cassiel who float around the city watching different individuals' existence and listening to their inner most thoughts and feelings. In the film Cassiel states that the angels existence is 'to assemble, testify and preserve reality.' The use of the camera in the film adds to existential theme. The camera seems to slowly float around the city alongside with the angels, observing the inhabitants' existence below.

Damiel begins to fall in love with a young circus performer named Marion and longs to renounce his immortal existence for a physical one. He grows tired of merely observing existence, he longs to experience it. With his becoming mortal the camera transforms alongside him. The film had been shot in a monochrome sepia, but when Damiel becomes mortal the camera displays colour. This is clearly metaphorical for the fact that Damiel now sees the world in a different tone, through an entirely different colour scheme, representative of his new-found mortality.

Marion was a lonely soul desperately seeking the existence of love to transform her life into colour and Damiel brings this to her, creating an uplifting ending conveying the positivity of existentialism.