Wings of Columbo

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Wim Wenders' romantic fantasy Wings of Desire. Today, I saw Wings of Desire for the very first time.

I've been meaning to see this film for years. After all, Wenders' Paris, Texas is one of my favorite movies of all time. I should have seen this film far sooner.

Stylistically, it alternates between black and white, German and English. Substantively, there is the story of an angel who wishes to be mortal so he can feel pleasure and pain, warmth and cold, bitterness and sweet and above all else love. It is easy to see why Bruno Ganz fell in love with the trapeze artist (played by Solveig Dommartin). Remarkably, Dommartin learned how to be a trapeze artist in a matter of weeks. She looked like she had been doing it her whole life. Sadly, Dommartin died in 2007 of a heart attack at the age of 45.

It was fascinating to see a film depicting Berlin before the fall of the Wall. There is now a whole generation of people who have not known life with the Berlin Wall. Wings of Desire is a reminder of how pervasive it was in the life of Berliners and how large it loomed in the Cold War.

I did not realize Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds were in Wings of Desire. They make the most of their presence.

But the main reason I went to see Wings of Desire was because Peter Falk was in it. Although credited as Der Filmstar he is playing himself. In several internal monologues, he refers to himself as Peter and he is called Peter by the crew of the Holocaust movie he is filming. Others in the film refer to Falk as Columbo. In reality, Falk was the conscience of the film. He too was an angel who preferred mortality and yet knew when he was the presence of other guardians.

After Falk's death in 2011, Wenders wrote a tribute to Falk and the effect he had on people during the shooting of Wings of Desire:

Rarely a shoot was so much fun as those days with Peter Falk. Everybody recognized him, of course. As soon as you stood in the street with him, people showed up from everywhere. Pizza bakers came running out of their pizzerias, their hands still full of flour! Buses stopped! Old ladies crossed red lights for the first time in their lives!

I never saw anybody deal with his fame so generously and kindly. Peter Falk shook everybody’s hands, smiled at everybody, gave everybody an autograph, had everybody spell their funny German names, had his picture taken with everybody! With no exception! And everybody walked away happily: “I met Columbo!”

There is little doubt that Falk's appearance in Wings of Desire led to the revival of the Columbo series on ABC in 1989. Although it had its moments, it did not live up the original series be it the acting, ambience and attention to detail. What could have been had Wenders directed a couple of episodes? 

Obviously, we will never know the answer. But Peter Falk was an ornament who added another dimension to Wim Wenders' avant-garde European film.