Berlin für Bibi 2 (by Violeta definitely without Tobias)
The film DER HIMMEL ÜBER BERLIN is also one of my favourite movies, it is even more than that: it was a kind of revelation.
When I saw it for the first time, more than ten years ago, I didn´t understand a single word of the dialogues resp. monologues (by the way: the screenplay is written by Wim Wenders and Peter Handke, whose recent play we saw last week and wrote about on this blog). I was overburdened by that film-poem - but somehow I knew: that´s it, that´s what film also can be!
There are lots people who think that Wender´s films are boring - that´s what Tobias supposes them to be… - and who think that especially DER HIMMEL ÜBER BERLIN is complete kitsch.
It is not! It is the story of two angels, Damiel (played by Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (played by Otto Sander), who promenade through the divided Berlin. Damiel falls in love with the trapezist Marion and gives up his immortality…
The film was shot in 1987 (= the year Bibi visited Berlin). And most of the places that are shown do not exist anymore. They disappeared. Not all of them of course, for example the library “Staatsbibliothek” at Potsdamer Plats still exists and looks like in the film. But most of them at least mutated and are out of all recognition.
If you remember the scene when Homer (one of the film´s figures, played by Curt Bois) walks along the wall at Potsdamer Platz - followed by his guardian angel Cassiel - and says: “Ich kann den Potsdamer Platz nicht finden! Nein, ich meine hier… Das kann er doch nicht sein! Denn am Potsdamer Platz, da war doch das Café Josti… Das Kaufhaus Wertheim war auch hier. Und dann hingen plötzlich Fahnen dort…“, and you compare the location with today´s Potdamer Platz, you awake to the accelerated metamorphosis of this place.
For instance the isolated house on Potsdamer Platz, shown in the film, is now surrounded by skyscrapers (see picture) and from today it is nearly impossible to imagine, that around this house there has been waste land.
Recently Wenders published a dvd-collection with his seven favourite films. Of course DER HIMMEL ÜBER BERLIN is among them because, according to his words, together with his ALICE IN DEN STÄDTEN (from 1974) it is his most important film. The chosen films come with an audio-comment spoken by Wenders himself and in the case of DER HIMMEL ÜBER BERLIN with a bonus-dvd with an interview, shots that have been cut of and scenes that have not been used (like a very funny pie-fight between Damiel, Cassiel and Marion). That material is wonderful and the comments guide the eyes to overlooked details.
By the way: these days the heaven above Berlin is dark and cloudy…
Ps für Tobi: In der dem neuen, sehr schönen Dokumentarfilm über Wim Wenders frühe Jahre, der auf der Berlinale lief, sagt er selbst über sein Werk: Wenn es ein Thema in meinen Filmen gibt, das sich durchzieht, denn natürlich haben meine Filme viele Themen, dann ist es die Frage: Wie soll man leben? Wie kriegt man das nur hin, in diesen Zeiten?
Ja, ist das etwa langweilig… Na?!
