Криле на желанието, Вим Вендерс

WINGS OF DESIRE
1987

Director:Wim Wenders
Screenplay:Wim WendersPeter Handke

The sky over Wenders' war-scarred Berlin is full of gentle, trenchcoated angels who listen to the tortured thoughts of mortals and try to comfort them. One, Damiel (Bruno Ganz), wishes to become mortal after falling in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, Marion (Solveig Dommartin). Peter Falk, as himself, assists in the transformation by explaining the simple joys of a human experience, such as the sublime combination of coffee and cigarettes.
Told from the angel's point of view, the film is shot in black and white, blossoming into color only when the angels perceive the realities of humankind. Ultimately, Damiel determines that he must experience humanity in full, and breaks through in to the real world to pursue a life with Marion.
A hugely acclaimed and multi-award winning movie including Best Director for Wenders at Cannes 1987; which was remade in 1998 into City of Angels starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan.

Song of Childhood

By Peter Handke

When the child was a child It walked with its arms swinging, wanted the brook to be a river, the river to be a torrent, and this puddle to be the sea.
When the child was a child, it didn’t know that it was a child, everything was soulful, and all souls were one.
When the child was a child, it had no opinion about anything, had no habits, it often sat cross-legged, took off running, had a cowlick in its hair, and made no faces when photographed.
When the child was a child, It was the time for these questions: Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? When did time begin, and where does space end? Is life under the sun not just a dream? Is what I see and hear and smell not just an illusion of a world before the world? Given the facts of evil and people. does evil really exist? How can it be that I, who I am, didn’t exist before I came to be, and that, someday, I, who I am, will no longer be who I am?
When the child was a child, It choked on spinach, on peas, on rice pudding, and on steamed cauliflower, and eats all of those now, and not just because it has to.
When the child was a child, it awoke once in a strange bed, and now does so again and again. Many people, then, seemed beautiful, and now only a few do, by sheer luck.
It had visualized a clear image of Paradise, and now can at most guess, could not conceive of nothingness, and shudders today at the thought.
When the child was a child, It played with enthusiasm, and, now, has just as much excitement as then, but only when it concerns its work.
When the child was a child, It was enough for it to eat an apple, … bread, And so it is even now.
When the child was a child, Berries filled its hand as only berries do, and do even now, Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw, and do even now, it had, on every mountaintop, the longing for a higher mountain yet, and in every city, the longing for an even greater city, and that is still so, It reached for cherries in topmost branches of trees with an elation it still has today, has a shyness in front of strangers, and has that even now. It awaited the first snow, And waits that way even now.
When the child was a child, It threw a stick like a lance against a tree, And it quivers there still today.