History Film / WingsOfDesire

Bruno Ganz, who plays Damiel, would explore the other extreme of the good-to-evil spectrum a quarter-century later when he played UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler in ''Film/{{Downfall}}''. Curt Bois, who plays the elderly storyteller, was the pickpocket ("vultures, vultures everywhere") in ''Film/{{Casablanca}}''.

* ArcWords: The [[http://www.wim-wenders.com/movies/movies_spec/wingsofdesire/wod-song-of-childhood-german.htm "Lied vom Kindsein"]], with its repetitive structure, appears throughout the movie.

* HeroisBSOD: Cassiel has one after failing to stop a young man from leaping to his death, leaping off of the angel statue he hangs out on himself before wandering all around the city in a daze, observing various scenes of human desperation. He spends the rest of the film after this in a state of deep melancholy.
* HumansAreBastards: Ultimately defied, as despite observing human desperation all around Berlin and presumably witnessing some of the worst horrors of history the angels never lose their faith in people. At one point Damiel and Cassiel have a conversation where Cassiel muses about how humans have always fought and persecuted each other, but Damiel counters saying that they have always loved each other as well.

** Music/NickCave as himself performing with the Bad Seeds. Turns out Marion is a fan.

The film depicts two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, wandering in UsefulNotes/ColdWar era UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} and listening to the thoughts of humans. Among those humans are an old man looking for the now-destroyed Potsdamer Platz and recalling the good times he used to have there; Peter Falk AsHimself; and Marion, a lonely French trapezist.

The angels don't directly intervene in human existence but sometimes give comfort to humans who need it, like a woman in labor, or a suicidal man on a tram, or a motorcyclist who is dying in the street after he was struck by a car. Damiel however yearns to be human himself, and to experience life as a mortal does. Eventually he falls in love with Marion the trapeze artist, and has to make a difficult choice.

* AndStarring: Peter Falk gets an "In a special appearance" credit.

* SceneryGorn: The zone near the UsefulNotes/BerlinWall are nothing buy gloomy.

* SceneryGorn: The zone near the BerlinWall are nothing buy gloomy.

* StockFootage: The old man's fruitless search for the Potzdamer Platz--a wasteland split by the Berlin Wall at that time--is interspersed with some horrifying stock footage of the destruction of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.

* AsHimself: Peter Falk as himself--he's even called "Series/{{Columbo}}"--an American actor filming a movie in Berlin. He's eventually revealed to be a former angel.

* AsHimself: Peter Falk plays more or less himself (to the point where children call him "Series/{{Columbo}}"), an American actor filming a movie in Berlin. [[spoiler: He's also actually a former angel himself]].

* ColorMotif: It eventually becomes clear that events shown from the perspective of the angels are DeliberatelyMonochrome while scenes not from their perspective are the ones in color. This is illustrated by a scene in Marion's trailer that shifts from black and white to color after Damiel leaves.

* ArtShift: It eventually becomes clear that events shown from the perspective of the angels are DeliberatelyMonochrome while scenes not from their perspective are the ones in color. This is illustrated by a scene in Marion's trailer that shifts from black and white to color after Damiel leaves.

** There is a similar match cut between a black-and-white view of the Berlin skyline (right after the boy jumps to his death, from Cassiel's perspective) to a color shot of the skyline from a hotel room where Peter Falk and the movie folks are having a meeting.

* DeliberatelyMonochrome : The film is shot that way because the angels [[OurAngelsAreDifferent don't see colours]] [[spoiler:until one of them becomes human]].

* MatchCut: One scene smoothly transitions from a stock footage clip of a bombed out 1945 Berlin street to a clean, modern 1986 street. (Maybe the same one?)

* PinocchioSyndrome: Both angels at the beginning discuss how they'd like to be human for a change; [[spoiler: one of them has his wish come true.]]

A {{sequel}}, ''Faraway So Close'', was made in 1993. The first film received a ''very'' loose American remake, ''Film/CityOfAngels'', in 1998. Bruno Ganz, who plays Damiel, would explore the other extreme of the good-to-evil spectrum a quarter-century later when he played UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler in ''Film/{{Downfall}}''.

* ArtShift: It eventually becomes clear that events shown from the perspective of the angels are DeliberatelyMonochrome while scenes not from their perspective are the ones in color.

The angels sometimes give comfort to humans who need it, like when Damiel comforts a woman in labor or gives some happier thoughts to a suicidal man on a tram. Damiel however yearns to be human himself, and to experience life as a mortal does. Eventually he falls in love with Marion the trapeze artist, and has to make a difficult choice.

* LadyInRed: Marion when eventually meets [[spoiler: Damiel as a human]] wears a lavish red dress.

The film depicts two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, wandering in UsefulNotes/ColdWar era UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} and listening to the thoughts of humans. Among those humans are an old man looking for the now-destroyed Potsdamer Platz and recalling the good times he used to have there; Peter Falk AsHimself; and a lonely French trapezist, whom one of the angels falls in love with.

* ByTheEyesOfTheBlind

* ForeignRemake: Remade as ''Film/CityOfAngels''

The film depicts two angels wandering in UsefulNotes/ColdWar era UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} and listening to the thoughts of humans, among them an old man looking for the now-destroyed Potsdamer Platz and recalling the good times he used to have there; Peter Falk AsHimself; and a lonely French trapezist, whom one of the angels falls in love with.

A {{sequel}}, ''Faraway So Close'', was made in 1993. The first film received a ''very'' loose American remake, ''Film/CityOfAngels'', in 1998.