Wim Wenders is an Oscar nominated director who, in 1987, release the movie Wings Of Desire to little fanfare. The movie received a little critical acclaim but at the box office it was a sort of a disappointment. But for years Wings Of Desire would not go away and in 1998 it was reissued in a limited release in the United States and it brought in over $3 million USD at the box office this second time around. Wings Of Desire was nominated for a bunch of awards and wound up winning 15 film awards but none of them, however, were for an Academy Award. But the hype created by the re-release of the movie has helped to bring recognition to the work of Wim Wenders and is starting to bring a new audience to this Oscar nominated actor.

Wings Of Desire has a cast of mostly German actors that are relatively unknown to most American movie goers. However, in and among the German actors, there stands out one American actor who is an icon in American film and television and that man is Peter Falk. Falk adds a familiar face to the movie along with some memorable lines and he is also part of the reason for the appeal of the movie the second time around to American movie goers. Falk’s role is listed simply as “Der Filmstar” and he plays himself as a movie star within the plot of this movie. He gives a memorable performance and interacts very well with the rest of the cast but yet he does not allow his character to become more important in the movie than it should be even though Falk winds up becoming a large part of the story.

Wings Of Desire is about two angels that roam Berlin invisible to everyone else but their job is to help the people they come in contact with as best they can. When the movie is being seen from the angels’ point of view it is in a black and white that is made by a filter over the screen and looks a little different than a standard black and white movie. When we see something that is not from the angels’ perspective it is in color. Peter Falk plays an actor who is in Berlin to do research for a movie he is going to be in about Nazi Germany and it is revealed that Falk was an angel at one time as well but he got tired of always watching but never doing so he renounced his immortality and became human. One of the two angels in Wings Of Desire decides that he wants to be human as well and after he renounces his immortality he notices that he can bleed, he can see things in color, and more importantly he can make a substantial contact with humans now and he is very happy.

Wings Of Desire also becomes a love story as the newly mortal angel finally gets the chance to speak to a female trapeze artist that he has been watching for a very long time. The two of them meet and a relationship is born. Much of the plot of the movie is carried on into the sequel called Faraway, So Close! that Wim Wenders made in 1993. Faraway, So Close! shows how far Wenders has come in the movie making world as the cast of this sequel to Wings Of Desire includes Oscar nominated actor Willem Defoe and American rock singer Lou Reed. Faraway, So Close! was unable to capture the same financial success in America that Wings Of Desire did.