Der Himmel über Berlin
West Germany,
1987, 125 min
Shown in 1988
CREDITS
- dir
-
Wim Wenders
- prod
-
Wim Wenders, Anatole Dauman
- scr
-
Wim Wenders, Peter Handke
- cam
-
Henri Alékan
- cast
-
Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Peter Falk, Otto Sander, Curt Bois
- premiere
-
U.S. Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Solveig Dommartin in person.
OTHER
Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire is remarkable. Part romance, part comedy, part meditation on matters political and philosophical, it posits a world haunted by spirits (Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander), posted to contemporary Berlin, who encounter a myriad of mortals, including an aging writer blighted by memories of a devastated Germany; actor Peter Falk, on location shooting a film about the Nazi era; and a lonely trapeze artist, with whom Bruno Ganz falls in love, thus prompting his desire to become mortal at last. A film about the Fall and the Wall, it’s full of astonishingly hypnotic images and manages effortlessly to turn Wenders’ and Peter Handke’s poetic, literary script into pure cinematic expression.
—Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Wim Wenders returns to Germany with a sublimely beautiful, deeply romantic film for our times... a valentine to Berlin... the film is a joy.
—David Stratton, Variety
FACTOID #219
Daniel Talbot, editor of Film: An Anthology , was the first recipient of the Mel Novikoff Award in 1988. Later he cofounded New Yorker Films, a distribution company that introduced many foreign language films to North American audiences. The Mel Novikoff Award, named after the pioneering San Francisco exhibitor, is given to an individual or institution whose work has enhanced the filmgoing public’s knowledge and appreciation of world cinema.
