Wings of Desire Love Story is Generic
What is a generic love story? It’s when the characters have no character and fall in love for no reason. Hardly a story behind it. Just for the sake of it and a happy ending. Damiel the angel has a human character. He exists during some dramatic events which I will describe to show his lack of character.
He observed a pregnant woman in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. He rubbed her belly. He cares about people and wants them to be reassured, despite being unable to do anything. He is not trying to comfort her. He can’t. She doesn’t feel the relief of an angel being with her. If she cared about what stupid angels are doing, she would waste her time in a futile mess! Damiel cares about people more than most. If I was an angel, I wouldn’t bother since I can’t change anything. He is caring, but did he do anything out of the ordinary? No. Is his care different? No. So far, he is generic.
The motorcycle accident is different. He is insensitive. When he approaches a dying motorbike crash victim, he starts waffling about mountains, cattle, boathouses and lakes. Me, me, me. I go up mountains, I see the boathouse floating in the lake, I have a big dick. Not one mention of the poor lad who’s dying from the accident. A good person or even an ok person would think about the torment he’s going through, but instead it’s all about him. What a prick. Then he just walks away because he’s not concerned.
In the suicide scene, Cassiel hugs him but he falls and Cassiel shouts in despair. These sad scenes aren’t really generic, because it shows the angels are caring. It’s about as dramatic as you can get in an angel movie. The angels are boring because they can’t do anything. Damiel is not particularly caring or different. That’s still not enough to make him generic.
He doesn’t even have a story! As we grow up we do things that make us who we are. For example, I play soccer. I make fun of socialism and my friends. I support Israel and fail school. This is my story. It makes me somewhat unique. If we didn’t have story, we would be nothing. Damiel just appeared on Earth before humans did and he couldn’t do anything. No story. Truly a disaster.
If the woman is generic, boring and the love build up is too, I am right.
Marion is a lonely trapeze artist. She doesn’t get enough love. ‘I waited an eternity for someone to say a loving word to me’. Wow! Wouldn’t it be great if someone were to fall in love with her.
It is not only generic, but also predictable. She says ‘Someone who’d say, I love you so much today,’ would be wonderful. He then approaches her, puts his hand on her shoulder and stands next to her. It’s ‘if only someone would fall in love with me’. It’s corny. It’s like the suicide squad her heart’s out thing. The movie should help you observe her loneliness, not show her saying someone fall in love with me as he approaches her.
What’s so bad about it being predictable? It can’t be that predictable, because movie plot twists happen all the time. It’s just easy to say I predicted that after. Even if it’s a simple concept, I still want to see them fall in love and see how the movie shows it. Well I don’t want to just see them fall in love in a stupid, boring way and that’s exactly why I wrote this essay. I will get on to the build up to the love later.
Now I want to discuss how it is stupid of him to fall in love with someone he hasn’t interacted with. How could you possibly know them? You don’t know what you and her are like. You don’t know if you like the relationship. It’s like falling in love with a random person you haven’t talked to at school. There needs to be a story. This is just empty and boring. When you don’t interact with someone, you don’t know them well enough to fall in love with them unless it’s because they are hot. So, it’s stupid when he falls in love with her. The build up is based on this stupid love, so this is a stupid love story.
What if she seems okay to him and he wants to help her escape loneliness, then they fall in love? This is plausible because this scene she is very lonely. He listens to her, feeling sympathy. She talks about being a foreigner, who feels lost despite the wall keeping her stuck. She lacks guidance. ‘Maybe I’ll find a waitressing job.’ Clearly she has no idea, where did that come from? She’s lonely. If they fall in love after, then that story may not be generic.
Ok. Let’s look at their story. It starts by Marion approaching the film guy. She tells him she wants to find someone. At this point, it’s obviously predictable because who else would it be? Maybe that’s ok. More on that later. She’s not talking about him because she doesn’t know him yet. If she finds him and gets to know him first, then they spend time together, it could actually be an ok love story. They could try to understand each-other for us to observe. Maybe then they can seem like they have real feelings and have ideas we can relate to, so we care about what they do. Maybe then we can care about them and their story.
He offers her a drink and they immediately fall in love. She instantly opens up asking, ‘Why was the brown-eyed boy my brother?’. These are the private thoughts she keeps to herself, as we saw during the scene in her caravan. Then they kiss. Yay!
They fell in love for no reason. The love story is dumb. There is nothing to care about. Damiel’s human character is dull because he can’t do anything as an angel and doesn’t do anything unique as a human. This is obviously because he was an angel, which makes this movie about angels suck. In the scenes where Marion is lonely, there is no depth. I’m lonely, oh look, Damiel turns up. So predictable. There is nothing unique to this love story. He fell in love with someone he never interacted with! It’s dumb and unrealistic, but maybe that’s ok.
Movies don’t have to be realistic. Look at superhero movies! This is an angel movie. It was still sweet of them to fall in love because you feel for them since they are lonely. Damiel was an angel and he couldn’t do anything or interact with any humans. She was a foreigner who is clearly lost and lonely. Her thoughts aren’t anything special, everyone daydreams. That’s fine, but it is not of any value. Her character still sucks.
The angel aspect is clearly futile, the love story is tedious. This movie is stupid because it’s its own barrier to success. Wim Wenders made it so the plot has to be pointless. I’m still in disbelief. I am convinced he is ten years old. He might as well be.