Wings of Desire

There are films which have a spark. That spark which calms your senses, and fires few moments which ignite a keen sense of emotional unity in your mind. You just know and feel it. Abandon all your chores, sit back and take comfort in knowing that the world is in no hurry. If time ticks, let it tick. For all I know, time is just another label stuck to our lives. Damn. 

Wings of Desire is one such movie. When the most natural feelings are said or put down in words, it creates a different world. We relate each emotion to our own and savor it. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. The lead role played by Bruno Ganz is quite a treat to watch. The following conversation between Damiel and Cassiel is rich, innocent and what I refer to as art

Damiel: It's great to live by the spirit, to testify day by day for eternity, only what's spiritual in people's minds. But sometimes I'm fed up with my spiritual existence. Instead of forever hovering above I'd like to feel a weight grow in me to end the infinity and to tie me to earth. I'd like, at each step, each gust of wind, to be able to say "Now." Now and now" and no longer "forever" and "for eternity." To sit at an empty place at a card table and be greeted, even by a nod. Every time we participated, it was a pretense. Wrestling with one, allowing a hip to be put out in pretense, catching a fish in pretense, in pretense sitting at tables, drinking and eating in pretense. Having lambs roasted and wine served in the tents out there in the desert, only in pretense. No, I don't have to beget a child or plant a tree but it would be rather nice coming home after a long day to feed the cat, like Philip Marlowe, to have a fever and blackended fingers from the newspaper, to be excited not only by the mind but, at last, by a meal, by the line of a neck by an ear. To lie! Through one's teeth. As you're walking, to feel your bones moving along. At last to guess, instead of always knowing. To be able to say "ah" and "oh" and "hey" instead of "yea" and "amen."

Cassiel: Yeah, to be able, once in a while, to enthuse for evil. To draw all the demons of the earth from passers-by and to chase them out into the world. To be a savage.

Damiel: Or at last to feel how it is to take off shoes under a table and wriggle your toes barefoot, like that. 

Beautiful as I read. There are so many beautiful lines like these in the movie. Amazing.