Training by Movie Star (4) Wings of Desire
What do we see? What can we hear? What do we feel? What can we taste? We have our senses and trust them – how reliable is it? Wim Wenders, Peter Handke, Nobel Prize winner for literature in 2019, wrote the script. Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, and Peter Falk make this movie special.
Wings of Desire (in German: Der Himmel über Berlin translated back ‚The Heaven/Sky over Berlin‘ – better and less slippery) was made in 1987 still in times of the iron curtain. The film is about humans and angels. It is playing in Berlin. Angels are invisible (even some may feel their presence), and immortal. They can listen to and hear the thoughts of humans. When the camera sees with their eyes, it is sepia-toned black and white. When human look, only spoken words are audible, and pictures are in color. Is there interaction? It is as the camera sees through the eyes and the microphone listens through the ears of angels and humans.
Great actors are playing in this movie. We may learn about imagination, see – again brilliant, this time not playing – makes quite a difference telling about the pleasure of having, feeling and tasting a hot cup of coffee. The script is worth a reading too, and the film is not only talking about limitations in our senses.
We all and based on our individual life and what our life allows us to experience. Our (re-)action is based on our history, what we can see, hear, taste. If we remain open, we may reach the highest level of experience. But every next level comes with its own limitation.
