Every day, Damiel (Bruno Ganz) listens to the thoughts of mortals who play their lives out on the streets of West Berlin. He finds himself entranced by a trapeze artist (Solveig Dommartin) whose eloquent expression of her doubts and fears makes him yearn for a life where he can feel happiness and love.
As with A Matter of Life and Death, the afterlife here is a world in monochrome. Only the living can see in full colour and it is their lives, with their moments of sorrow and joy, that Wim Wenders captures so eloquently in this singularly poetic film. Winner of the Best Director prize at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, Wings of Desire is both a paean to Germany's capital and a vital rumination on human existence itself.
