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Wings of Desire
Wim Wenders is one of the most curious directors of the last forty years. As previously discussed in my essay on Paris, Texas, Wenders searches not for answers or meaning but for purpose. Though others conflate these three things, purpose to Wenders is something much different, much more profound than a simple reason. Purpose is a guiding light, the gut feeling that leads us to love and pain and everything that we hold dear. In Wenders’ second masterpiece Wings of Desire, purpose is explored in West Berlin through the eyes of everyday angels.
These angels, Damiel played beautifully by Bruno Ganz, and his partner Cassiel played by Otto Sander, spend their existence observing, their mantra being “assemble, testify, preserve.” Over the course of one day (and a culmination of millennia), Damiel questions his role and where it lies in the lives of the creatures around him. They listen to the most intimate of thoughts of those around them and discuss instances of humanity they find particularly strange. On discovering a lonesome trapeze artist, Damiel’s questioning of his place in the universe comes further into focus, and his desire to not just understand but to be human overwhelms him. The desire for not just love and understanding, but a desire for a purpose.
The angels do have a purported purpose; Assemble, testify, preserve. These are not given any further explanation but we can determine what they mean through the actions of the angels. Assemble. Damiel and Cassiel, as well as the other nameless angels we see throughout Berlin, have existed here long before people had arrived, before a city was built, and before a great wall divided it. They can not affect the world around them, but they can try and order it, try and determine what is and isn’t. They assemble not the world around them but the cause and effect of that world, and of humanity. Here again, we see they are seeking a purpose, the purpose of action.
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