WINGS OF DESIRE
(Der Himmel über Berlin)

PARTS: ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN
NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY

The relationship between Damiel and Cassiel is first defined in the angelic realm, and is transformed as the film progresses. bell hooks speaks of their relationship as "homosocial" -- which is an apt coinage. However, an analysis of what I see as her limited (or even incorrect) misreading of the film delineates which parts of each angel's self-definition and actions stem from their relationship with one another. For example, does Cassiel's expression of being "wounded" in the scene when Marion and Damiel's first conversation indicate that "homosocial bonding, however innocent, must become secondary to the fulfillment of heterosexual desire" as hooks suggests? Or does Cassiel foresee the tribulations of mortality befalling his "friend"? (We know that Cassiel's most vehement expression of emotion was over his inability to console a soul bent on suicide.) Or, perhaps Cassiel's feelings are unrelated to anyone else's plight, and his own yearnings to live a mortal life in the world of action and consequence are beginning to surface. He expresses an interest in being human -- a much darker interest than Damiel's -- early in the film. When Damiel speaks of wanting to come home to feed his cat, "like Philip Marlowe," Cassiel speaks of wanting to be a human and unleash "dark forces" (an imprecise translation) into the world. This is an ironic statement for the "angel of temperance" -- a characteristic of Cassiel the attentive viewer is introduced to in the readings of one of the library's patrons.

I do not want to understate Cassiel's general aura of grief. Cassiel is dark -- he speaks of demons -- and in pain. Wenders includes several interludes featuring Cassiel doing nothing more than looking despondent. For example, late the night of the final circus performance, we see Cassiel looking at best contemplative -- and possibly depressed -- in the closed library. Later that same night -- in the dawn of the following morning -- we see him riding a bus alone. He appears to be in an even lonelier state than earlier in the night, when he surrounded himself with other angels in the library. Cassiel's close "relationship" with Homer, a forlorn though inspired figure, resonates with a bond based on some lack of fulfillment. Take as a clue Damiel's most forlorn moment as an angel -- as a Christ-like figure with his arms extended as if on the cross, while sitting in a chair at the top of the stairs in the library -- and combine that with what we know are Damiel's unfilled desires to be human. (Note also the Pieta when Damiel finally makes the transformation.) Cassiel appears to occupy this desolate space (similar to Homer's obsession with the desolate Potsdamer Platz, or the filmmaker's predilection for said setting) throughout the film, while Damiel only briefly brushes against it. Damiel's sole encounter with Homer has just occurred on the staircase, before his Christ-like attitude. This contrasts a temporary feeling within Damiel with a recurring relationship & state that Cassiel endures.

In short, to point to the relationship between Damiel and Cassiel as the source of Cassiel's sorrow misses most of the indications that Cassiel is troubled by the human plight (and perhaps his limited role in it) in general. As we learn from one of the reader's thoughts that we overhear in the library, Cassiel is the angel of not only temperance, but, significantly, solitude. Arguably, any sorrow Cassiel feels for Damiel stems not from loss but is a natural reaction Cassiel has to mortals -- and increasingly has towards Damiel simply because of Damiel's transition to mortality, not away from Cassiel. Though Damiel and Cassiel's self-definition and actions are not sui generis, neither are they based on some sort of intimate social-psychological relationship between the two of them.

One of Cassiel's favorite haunts is the Siegessäule (or Victory Column). The 67-m (222 ft) column was built in 1873 to commemorate the 1864-1871 Franco-Prussian war that resulted in the Bismarck's victory over Denmark, France and Austria. A winged "goddess of victory" rests atop the column, resting on decorative objects cast from the metal used in cannons in the war. An observation platform is just beneath the angel of victory -- referred to as the Golden Else by Berliners. There is something ironic in Wenders' desire to view this statue as "'the Angel of Peace', metamorphosed from being a warlike victory angel into a pacifist." The war presaged the first modern unification of Germany, however, and that unification may rhyme with the wholeness that Wenders' film seeks. This is tempered by the fact that such unification can contain a significant dose of patriotism gone awry. A case in point: The statue was originally located outside the Reichstag but was moved to its present location when Hitler completed the East-West Axis thoroughfare bisecting the Tiergarten in time for a monumental military parade on his 50^th birthday in April of 1938. (The statue was stripped and painted a dull bronze during WWII, to diminish its ability to be seen by attackers, from the air. The street was renamed the Strasse des 17 Juni, to commemorate the East Berlin uprising of 1953.)