Wings of Desire (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

German director Wim Wenders Wings of Desire is one of the most spiritual and poetic films ever made. When watching the hypnotic beauty of the film it quickly gets you seduced under it's spell and you become entranced by its visual beauty and meditating power. The angels in the film are not only guardian angels who were put on our planet to watch over human inhabitants, but are also observers that have seen the mistakes and atrocities that humans have committed since the beginning of mankind. In Wings of Desire the angels move invisibly throughout the city of Berlin, watching, listening, and comparing notes with each other. Young children are able to see them because of their purity and innocence, and the angels usually watch in high places like on tall buildings and over heroic statues. The angels do not directly change the events of the humans they observe and in one instance while an angel is trying to comfort a man contemplating suicide, the man decides to jump and kills himself. 

Much of Wings of Desire brings a mood of calm medication as we the audience observe the people and the world they inhabit just as the angels do. The story unfolds slowly and the plot doesn't really start taking shape until an hour and a half in the film. The story is very simple and yet profound as we follow two angels named Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander). They comfort and listen to the thoughts of several humans, including a painter struggling to find inspiration, a broken man who thinks his girlfriend no longer loves him, an old Holocaust victim struggling with the horrors of the past, parents worried about their son who seems angry and distant, a mother going in labor and being rushed to a hospital, and several different passengers on a plane, trams and people in the streets; which is greatly similar to the turning of a dial on a radio program. We watch films to be brought into the personal lives of several characters and bear witness to their sorrow, pain, fear, humor and happiness; and in many ways we are just like the angels; observing the observers. And then the unthinkable happens, and suddenly Damiel decides that he wants to become human because he has fallen in love with a human being, and wants to experience human pleasures. The film is shot in both a rich, sepia-toned black-and-white and color, with the former being used to represent the world as experienced by the angels.