Wings of Desire (1987) in Color — Starring Bruno Ganz & Solveig Dommartin

Wings of Desire (1987) – Buy This Classic Fantasy in Color

Experience the transcendent Wings of Desire (1987) in luminous colorized HD. Directed by Wim Wenders and starring Bruno Ganz and Solveig Dommartin, this poetic masterpiece follows an angel who watches over divided Berlin, listening to the thoughts and sorrows of its inhabitants, until he falls in love with a mortal woman and must choose between eternal spiritual existence and the brief, imperfect, intensely felt experience of being human. With its breathtaking cinematography, philosophical depth, and deeply romantic vision, Wings of Desire is one of the most beautiful and emotionally overwhelming films ever created. Now available as a premium digital download for just €15.00 — DRM-free and yours to keep forever.

Plot Summary

Berlin, still divided by the Wall, the late 1980s. Angels move invisibly through the city, observing and listening. They witness everything — the thoughts of commuters on the underground, the memories of old men in libraries, the fears of children, the despair of suicides, the mundane beauty of everyday existence. They are compassionate but cannot intervene, cannot touch, cannot taste, cannot feel physical sensation. They exist in a monochrome world of pure spirit, outside of time.

Damiel (Bruno Ganz) is one of these angels. For aeons he has watched over humanity, bearing witness to the joys and sufferings of mortal existence with infinite patience and tenderness. His companion Cassiel (Otto Sander) shares his immortal vigil. They meet atop buildings, in the no-man’s-land beside the Berlin Wall, in the great public library, to share what they have observed — a litany of human moments, poignant and comic and desperately sad.

One evening, Damiel visits a circus and sees Marion (Solveig Dommartin), a lonely trapeze artist who performs in angel wings — an irony that pierces him. He listens to her thoughts and discovers a woman of extraordinary sensitivity and longing, someone who feels the isolation of modern existence as acutely as he does. For the first time in his eternal existence, Damiel does not want merely to observe — he wants to experience. He wants to taste coffee, to feel cold, to bleed, to love.

Damiel’s growing desire to become mortal intensifies when he encounters Peter Falk — playing himself, visiting Berlin to act in a film — who reveals that he too was once an angel who chose to become human. Falk’s obvious enjoyment of simple sensory pleasures — rubbing his hands together against the cold, drinking coffee, sketching — becomes a powerful argument for mortality. The choice Damiel faces is absolute: he can remain an immortal witness, seeing everything but experiencing nothing, or he can fall to earth and become a mortal man, gaining the full richness of human sensation but losing eternity. For Marion, and for the chance to truly live rather than merely observe, Damiel chooses to fall. His first experiences as a human — seeing colour for the first time, tasting blood from a wound, drinking hot coffee — are rendered with such vivid wonder that they make the ordinary miraculous.

Cast & Crew

Director: Wim Wenders
Stars: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois, Peter Falk

Bruno Ganz gives one of the great performances in cinema as Damiel, conveying centuries of compassionate observation and the overwhelming longing to participate in the life he can only witness. His face communicates volumes — tenderness, yearning, wonder, and finally the overwhelming joy of physical existence. Peter Falk is a revelation as himself, bringing warmth and earthy humour to his scenes as a former angel who has embraced mortality with infectious enthusiasm.

Why Buy This Classic in Color?

The original film famously used a dual visual scheme — monochrome for the angels’ perspective and colour for the human world. The colorized version offers a unique and revelatory way to experience the film, bringing colour to the ethereal sequences and transforming the visual language in ways that create striking new dimension and beauty. The magnificent Berlin locations, from the great library to the Berlin Wall, gain extraordinary new atmosphere in the colourised presentation. Now also available in colour — in Farbe — for audiences worldwide. Own one of cinema’s most beautiful and profound love stories for just €15.00 — Wenders’ masterpiece in a luminous new visual experience.

Historical Significance

Wings of Desire is universally recognised as one of the great achievements of world cinema, a film whose influence extends far beyond the art house into popular culture — it inspired the Hollywood remake City of Angels (1998) and continues to be cited as a touchstone for poetic filmmaking. Wim Wenders created the film during the final years of the divided Berlin, and the city itself — with its scars, its Wall, its haunted history — becomes a character as complex and resonant as any human figure. Cinematographer Henri Alekan, who had shot Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast forty years earlier, created images of extraordinary, dreamlike beauty. The film won the Best Director prize at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival and has consistently appeared on every major list of the greatest films ever made. Through colorization, this transcendent masterpiece has been preserved for modern audiences in a beautiful new visual presentation.

Technical Details

• Format: MP4 digital download
• Resolution: HD 720p
• Colorized: Yes – professionally colorized from the original black-and-white
• Audio: Original German mono soundtrack with English subtitles
• Runtime: Approximately 128 minutes
• DRM-free: Yes – no restrictions on playback
• Instant download: Available immediately after purchase
• Price: €15.00

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Movie-Specific Questions

Q: Is this film in German?
A: Yes. The film is primarily in German with some English and French dialogue, presented with English subtitles. The original-language soundtrack preserves the poetic quality of the internal monologues and dialogue as Wenders intended, including Bruno Ganz’s extraordinary vocal performance.

Q: Is this the film that was remade as City of Angels?
A: Yes. The 1998 Hollywood film City of Angels starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan was based on Wings of Desire. However, most critics and audiences consider the original vastly superior — its poetic depth, visual beauty, and philosophical ambition are on an entirely different level from the commercial remake.

Q: Is this a difficult art film?
A: Despite its reputation, Wings of Desire is deeply accessible on an emotional level. Its central story — an angel who falls in love and chooses to become human — is one of the most romantic premises in all of cinema. The film is contemplative rather than slow, and its images and emotions communicate powerfully even without understanding every philosophical reference.

Digital Download Questions

Q: What format is the download?
A: The film is delivered as a high-quality MP4 file in 720p HD resolution, compatible with all major devices and media players.

Q: Is there DRM on this download?
A: No. The download is completely DRM-free, meaning you can watch it on any device without restrictions or expiration dates.

Q: How quickly can I watch after purchasing?
A: Your download link is available immediately after payment. You can start watching within minutes of completing your purchase.

Related Colorized Classics

• The Seventh Seal (1957)
• 8½ (1963)
• La Dolce Vita (1960)
• Wild Strawberries (1957)
• Metropolis (1927)