Wings of Desire

“When the child was a child, it didn’t know it was a child” chides the angel Damiel at the beginning. Scholarly and intense, his perching atop buildings is accompanied by constant thinking. Like Wenders’ earlier Paris, Texas [that name rings a bell...], it’s a film of showstopping monologues.

Through various moral quandaries and winding, extended conversations, Damiel weighs up his nature–always looking down at the city in wonder. Humans often dwell on the idea of eternal life and what we would do with it; here, the tantalising idea is that eternal beings may desire the opposite, to be blessed with glorious life even if it requires an end. The setting of a still-divided Berlin has never been more evocative.

Max King