24. Angels &...

Lyrics


I sit and wait
Does an angel contemplate my fate
And do they know
The places where we go
When we're grey and old
'Cause I have been told
That salvation lets their wings unfold
So when I'm lying in my bed
Thoughts running through my head
And I feel the love is dead
I'm loving angels instead

And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I'm right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won't break me
When I come to call, she won't forsake me
I'm loving angels instead

When I'm feeling weak
And my pain walks down a one way street
I look above
And I know I'll always be blessed with love
And as the feeling grows
She breathes flesh to my bones
And when love is dead
I'm loving angels instead

And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I'm right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won't break me
When I come to call, she won't forsake me
I'm loving angels instead

And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I'm right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won't break me
When I come to call, she won't forsake me
I'm loving angels instead


I like Robbie Williams, he has made many very entertaining songs (such as this one), but there is no way that this or any song of him should be this high on a list of best songs ever made. We haven't even come across a song yet by people like Elvis Presley, Paul Simon, Sting, Red Hot Chili Peppers and many more performers who are far greater than Robbie Williams. And Advertising Space, his best song, isn't even featured in the top 2000 list. Having said that, it is always nice when you don't have to do a lot of thinking to link a movie to a song. There is a classic movie which is exactly about angels contemplating the faiths of people and angels falling in love with people.

The Movie: Der Himmel uber Berlin (Wings of Desire) (Wim Wenders, 1987)

After finishing the screenplay for Wings of Desire, as this movie is known in English, Wim Wenders should have gone on writing and make a book out if his screenplay. This is certainly an odd, very interesting movie, but it could have been a brilliant book. In fact the film reminded me of the great philosophical books of the Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder, like Sophie's World (his most famous one), Maya and The Orange Girl. In all his books Gaarder, through interesting and fun philosophical thoughts and discussions, shows that life on earth is great and full of wonder, that humans are essentially wonderful, interesting beings, and that human connections, whether social, romantic or even professional, matter and enrich our lives immensely. All these while acknowledging that humans can be sometimes capable of evil acts and that life can sometimes be miserable. These are pretty much the same themes that are explored in Wings of Desire, only here they are much less fleshed out. I believe that in general books are a better medium for philosophical discussions than movies. In books there is more space to explore an idea and there is much less concern for a plot. And if you don't understand something you can reread it and understand it better. While in a movie you have to follow the pace set by the director and editor.

This is very clear in Wings of Desire. We follow here two angels who wander around Berlin listening to the thoughts of the Berlin inhabitants. If a Berliner is depressed they try to console him. While the Berliners can't see the angels, when the angels are around them, the human sometimes can feel the presence of 'something' and become happier. But the angels do not have a lot of power. We see that sometimes a human will kill himself, even when an angel tries to console him. In any case, the Berliners turn out to be incredibly eloquent, intelligent people whose thoughts are often very deep. (This, by the way, is not a criticism. It may not be a realistic representation of the people of Berlin, but the movie doesn't want to be that. And if Wenders had the Berliners thinking about what to buy for dinner it would make a very boring film.) All these thoughts are very interesting, but we never have much time to think about them themselves. After we hear from a person we move on to the next person who has some different thought. And not only do we hear the thoughts of the humans, sometimes the angels themselves have philosophical discussion about the differences between angels and humans and the angelic and the human world. The movie lasts for two hours, but for the first one and a half hour this is how it unfolds. It is all very interesting, but because we never really get the time to think about most ideas it sometimes gets frustrating. It must be said though that while all thoughts are different, they are all underlined by the theme of alienation. This was also an important theme in the very good film Paris, Texas, the only other Wenders film I had seen before this one. In Wings of Desire Wenders argues that alienation is horrible. Whether you are alienated from your love, your family or even your nation, you will get depressed. We need to have a sense of togetherness or community to be happy. We need to not only know that we can be loved, but that we ourselves can love too.

In the last half an hour though the movie reaches another level and becomes wonderfully absurd and inventive. One of the angels, Damiel, has fallen in love with a trapeze artist he can hear the thoughts of and has decided that he wants to become a human being. As he says it he wants to live in the 'now' and not in eternity. The first scenes when he is a human are wonderful. We see Damiel soaking in the wonders of the world with great joy. He can for the first time feel pain, taste food and see colors. (The film is shot in black and white when we see something from the point of view of an angel and in color when we see something from the point of view of a human being.) Hilariously he finds out that many other angels have come to earth to live as humans, one of them being the famous American actor Peter Falk, known mostly for his work as detective Columbo. In the end at a rather odd, but wonderful rock concert by Nick Cave he finds the trapeze artist. I can't say much about what happens, because I didn't really understand it myself. But these last scenes unfold in such a curious and unique manner, that the movie only becomes more fascinating.