Far Away, So Close!
Fans of "Wings of Desire" are familiar with the basic premise — brooding angels, whose point of view is shown in black and white, ministering to people in Berlin, trying to comfort and encourage them. But they are not allowed to physically communicate or interfere with their lives.In that film, the angel Damiel (Bruno Ganz) falls in love with a trapeze artist (Solveig Dommartin) and ultimately gets his wish to become mortal.
"Far Away, So Close!" takes a different tack, with Damiel's friend, the angel Cassiel (Otto Sanders), becoming mortal so he can save the life of a little girl who falls from a high-rise apartment building. At first, Cassiel revels in his newfound mortality, but he finds himself at odds with a sort of hip, threatening version of "Father Time" (Willem Dafoe), who doesn't feel he belongs in the mortal world.
This main plot, which eventually makes Cassiel companion to a local gangster (Horst Buchholz), meanders in some unfortunate directions, turning into a routine, by-the-numbers kidnapping thriller toward the end.
But there are still many small pleasures along the way, not the least of which is watching Damiel's love for mortality, singing as he rides his bike to his job as a pizzamaker, demonstrating his affection for his wife and their young daughter and generally enjoying life more than anyone around him.
Wenders actually intends this movie as a metaphor for the fall of the wall, but most of the way it's a rather uneven mix of conventional gangster motifs and wildly imaginative and whimsical fantasy. As you might expect, the film is at its best with the latter.
"Far Away, So Close!" is rated PG-13 for violence and profanity.
— WIM WENDERS had no intention of making a sequel to "Wings of Desire" . . . it just sort of happened. And while it's true that the words, "To be continued . . . " appeared on the screen at the conclusion of the film, Wenders says that was not meant to indicate a sequel was on the horizon.
" `Wings of Desire' was the story of Damiel, an angel who becomes mortal at the end of the movie," Wenders explained in a telephone interview from his Berlin office. "Damiel's story was just beginning, so we said, `To be continued.' But (the phrase referred to) Damiel's story, not the film."
In fact, "Far Away, So Close!" evolved when Wenders returned to Germany after living in the United States for several years, in the hope of writing a film about life after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He was in the throes of plotting a story with various characters he had created when he realized it was just not coming together.
"The angels had spoiled me," Wenders said. "So, reluctantly, almost against my own will, I felt I could not do it any other way."
Wenders says he looked at the story he was writing, examined the characters and found he could not put it in context without reverting back to the angels of "Wings of Desire." "I simply said, `The city is so complete, I can't do it any other way.' So, very reluctantly, I called my friends again and said, `We are not doing a sequel, but a continuation. It's the same people, but what has happened to them and what they are looking for now?"
Thus was born "Far Away, So Close!" which picks up where "Wings of Desire" left off, with former angel Damiel now living a full and happy mortal life, while his old friend Cassiel continues to minister to those less fulfilled people wandering the streets of Berlin.
Wenders says the film accurately conveys his own feelings about administering angels. "My personal feelings are very much expressed in `Far Away, So Close!' The angels appear, and they make it very clear from the very beginning that they are messengers. They are almost speaking to us but they say, `We are only here to deliver the message, we are the messengers.' Their function really is to spread this message of love."
Asked about the technique in both films that has the angels' viewpoint expressed in black and white, while mortal life is in color, Wenders says simply, "It just seemed so logical to me. We see in color, you are seeing in color, and you only have to look at your own photographs to know that seeing in color is such a superficial way of seeing things.
"Look at black-and-white photographs and they tend to show the essence of persons and places, a little bit like an X-ray looks at things. I thought angels would be seeing the essence of things in people."
And how did the filmmaker convince Mikhail Gorbachev to be in his movie? "I thought it would be impossible, but I wouldn't have forgiven myself if I hadn't tried. He's so essential to the reunification that his presence seemed important.
"So, I wrote him a letter, `Dear Mr. President . . . ' and sent it to the Kremlin, not really believing I would get an answer. But the letter got into the hands of his personal assistant, who was a movie buff and who had seen `Wings of Desire' several times.
"They said that Mr. Gorbachev would be in Berlin about six weeks later, and on a particular day when he could spare three hours, if we could talk him into doing it. So, we had the sets prepared and the actor (Otto Sanders, who plays the angel listening in on Gorbachev's thoughts) — and this was before we began principal photography. But I didn't think we could get him to come again.
"So, Mr. Gorbachev came in and we talked for about 10 minutes. And by then he had seen `Wings of Desire' and really didn't have to be talked into it all that much. Shooting the scene was very easy, and he took direction really well, if I might say so. He was cool and collected — while Otto was falling to pieces, especially when he had to put his arm around Mr. Gorbachev.
"But the most beautiful thing was when Mr. Gorbachev recorded his thoughts. We had to get it done right away, of course, so we went into a quiet room with a microphone and I had prepared three pages from his own writings. I didn't dare to suggest to write Mr. Gorbachev's thoughts.
"But he had his own ideas and said, `I know what your thing is about,' and we just started to improvise for 20 minutes. He'd still be improvising if we hadn't run out of tape.
"He was quite amazing and astonishing."