- Actors: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois, Peter Falk
- Directors: Wim Wenders
- Format: PAL, Original recording remastered
- Language English, French, German, Hebrew, Turkish
- Subtitles: English
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3 - 1.33:1
- Number of discs: 1
- Classification: PG
- Studio: Starz Home Entertainment
- DVD Release Date: 3 Feb 2003
- Run Time: 128 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00006JI25
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 51,959 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product details |
Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
"There are angels over the streets of Berlin," quotes the movie poster, but these are like no angels you've ever seen. Bundled in dark overcoats, they watch over the city with ears open to the heartbeat of the human soul, listening to the internal musings and yearnings of earthbound humans like existential detectives. In these delicate, astounding scenes we float through the thoughts of dozens of Berlin citizens, from the weary and worn to the hopeful and young, as the angels record the magic moments for some heavenly record. When Damiel (the empathic and sensitive Bruno Ganz) falls in love with an angel of another sort, the lonely trapeze artist Marion (willowy, sad-eyed Solveig Dommartin), he gives up the contemplation and observation of life to experience it himself.
Wim Wenders' most purely romantic film is like poetry on celluloid, a celebration of the transient and fragile moments of being human: the warmth of a cup of coffee on a cold day, the embrace of a friend, the touch of a lover, the rapture of love. Opening with an angel's-eye view of Berlin in silvery black and white (delicately captured by the great cinematographer Henri Alekan, who photographed Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast 40 years earlier), it transforms into a gauzy colour world when Damiel "crosses over" by sheer will. Peter Falk plays himself as a fallen angel with a special sensitivity for celestial visitors ("I can't see you, but I know you're there," he proclaims), and Otto Sander, whose smiling eyes brighten a face etched by eons of waiting and watching, is Damiel's partner. Wenders made a sequel in 1993, Faraway, So Close, and Hollywood remade the film as City of Angels with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com
Special Features
German
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround German
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Outtakes
Deleted Scenes
English Commentary By Wim Wenders
Trailer
Photo Gallery
Wim Wenders Biography
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround German
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Outtakes
Deleted Scenes
English Commentary By Wim Wenders
Trailer
Photo Gallery
Wim Wenders Biography
English
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
69 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The most beautiful and poetic film of all times,
By Ntshk (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Wings Of Desire [1987] [DVD] (DVD)
I love this film and I love it because of so many things. I saw it for the first time when I was a teenager in mid 90s and I was so impressed... I was roaming the streets of Almaty (my home town in Kazakhstan) with my best friend and I asked her: "Do you think angels are walking together with us and collecting the spiritual signs of our existence?' Of course, it was a joke, by what a romantic joke... A longing for something magical that can happen to a mortal...When you first watch the film, you wonder why Wim Wenders has picked two aging men in long black coats to be angels. That's not how you imagined an angel, after all. However, the further you watch the film, the more you realise that their angelic nature is in the way they look at everything, in their increadible eyes. When I think about this film I think about all the good that can happen to an ordinary human being. This film highlights the best in all of us and makes us immortal for a short while... And I believe this feeling is worth it. Natalia
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Serene, truthful, funny, lyrical, beautiful, haunting,
By
This review is from: Wings Of Desire [1987] [DVD] (DVD)
This film is just so lovely - it has haunted me all day (despite a stressful and distracting day at work) and is a film never to be forgotten. I had to order it to keep because I know it is a film I will want to watch at regular intervas for the rest of my like. The library scenes are particularly haunting and really do convey a strong impression of serenity. The notes in the bonus material are well worth watching too I watched them because I just wanted more I didn't want to leave this film. It is an average length film but I wish it was an hour longer - like one of those rare books that you really never want to finish Rent it!!! Buy it!!!
43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the finest films of the 1980's.,
By Jason Parkes "We're all Frankies'" (Worcester, UK) - See all my reviews (No. 1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)
This review is from: Wings Of Desire [1987] [DVD] (DVD)
This is probably Wenders' masterpiece, though it followed the equally wondeful Paris, Texas. Wings of Desire was another collaboration with Austrian writer Peter Handke (The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty). Following the key works of the New German Cinema (Kings of the Road, Alice in the Cities), Wenders went to work in America at Coppola's Zoetrope studios- making the problematic Hammett and the reaction The State of Things. Here he returned to Berlin, still divided by the wall which would fall two years later.The film sits somewhere between It's a Wonderful Life, Rilke's Duino Elegies, The Cure's Just Like Heaven and The Seventh Seal: a metaphysical romance. The lead character is literally Berlin (the German title is 'The Sky Over Berlin); Wenders uses Damiel and Cassiel as two omniscient angels tracking life in 1980's Berlin: observing like a camera. Here we see them listening to people's thoughts in an unforgettable fashion (and this was an influence on REM's video for Everybody Hurts). Damiel sees Marion, a circus acrobat with a penchant for Nick Cave and decides to make the trip from eternity to her (Wenders reversal of Nick Cave's song From Her to Eternity- played here along with The Carny). Along the way he meets Peter Falk as "Peter Falk"- who just happens to be an ex-angel and the film moves back to pre-history and the spectre of the War and Nazism (Falk is making a WWII movie, with those conotations for West Germany- tying it in with such German films as The Marriage of Maria Braun and Mephisto which explore Germany's dark past). This is pure poetry, as great as the best of Jean Cocteau in terms of transcendental imagery- every scene has resonance: a truly perfect film now restored on DVD. These are the people who see you when you cry (but who can never impinge on this world); the angels are non-intervensionist. Much better than the sappy Hollywood remake City of Angels- though it is worth seeing the post-wall/reunification sequel Faraway, So Close! where Cassiel follows Damiel into the mortal realm. Hopefully Wenders will follow this with DVD issues of his best 1990's films, The Lisbon Story and Until the End of the World. This is one of the finest films of the 1980's , or any decade from the first century of cinema...
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
