Faraway, So Close!, (In Weiter Ferne, So Nah! 1993),
stars Otto Sander, Peter Falk, Nastassia Kinski, Bruno Ganz, Willem Dafoe, with special appearances by Lou Reed and Mikhail Gorbachov as themselves. The film marks a return not only to Berlin, but also transposes the political and spiritual themes of Wings of Desire into the aftermath of the political upheavals that followed the fall of the Wall. A benevolent angel returns to a city once divided by history, ideology, or perhaps just by two opposing forces. Now freed from its constrictions, Berlin is nevertheless still prey to other, more subtle, invisible and intangible forces that pervade everyday life in the western world. The figure of the angel, for Wenders so heavily loaded with metaphorical significance, demands a particular approach to this work.The word angel derives from the ancient Greek anghelos, meaning nuncio, messenger. The term consequently also suggests the existence of a space in, across or through which the message is conveyed; the space between the speaker and those to whom he speaks. The angel is the bearer of meaning: the signifier. Unlike a term in language, in which the signifier is inseparable from its signified unless it is an abstraction, and therefore unable to carry any meaning other than its own, an angel is pure signifier: He carries meaning that is not his. Consequently, the space he occupies can only be a metaphorical space. The angel, after all, is not a metaphor for something other, he is himself the metaphor; a living metaphor that moves in an analogical space in which everything indicates another, is a sign for something other than itself.This space is divisible into three separate zones: the sky (good), the earth's surface (life) and the depths of the earth (evil). A space, so structured mainly for its analogous character - for it is pure sign -, rules out the possibility of psychological interpretation. The beings that move through it are but allusive figures; the significatory vortex deprives all that passes through of individuality, leaving it only a symbolic role to play within Wenders' grand text.The angels' vision is monochrome; the essence of the universe. They are unable to sense colour-differentiation and the opacity of things, causing material and spiritual to blend into one, but share in divine intelligence. Able to transcend any barrier, the angel is master of his space; flight, his method of instantaneous transportation, is the essential tool of the messenger. His transparity of vision and the ability to pass through physical barriers constitute another of his key assets.Life, then, unfolds beneath his gaze as an intense and articulate sensation emanating from the very heart of creation. From here, the human world is a distant idea (faraway), which nevertheless encroaches on the angel's space (so close). Such substantial estrangement from humanity situates him in a place far removed from human passions, pains and pleasures.Positioned as he is between Man and God, the angel apperceives not only divine nature (faraway), but also human nature (so close); he lives but a pace from mankind, but if he has a place, (a topos), it is on the border line between the earthly and the divine. The focal point of his gaze, his attention, (an object of love for Damiel, pain for Cassiel), is com-passion; when experienced together, (passion and compassion), they provoke a leap across the border line accompanied by a contraction of both space and time, formerly expanded, into an earthly hic et nunc[1] . The fall thus comes to represent an escape from generality in favour of extreme sensation and the birth of a punctiform[2] individual. "The blinking of an eye is, for him, an entire day", said Emit Flesti: The angel departs from the great history of the cosmos - for, despite their subjugation to an expanded temporal dimension, theirs is still a history, and their time a generator of history - to enter the human realm. The first consequence of Cassiel's fall - which is in turn the consequence of another fall, that of the little girl whom he catches - is the loss of angelic invulnerability represented by his armour breastplate. This may already spell death for Cassiel - a certainty on the horizon of every human being's destiny. The realisation of this possibility - which is at once an end as well as a rebirth - is the thread from which Cassiel's brief terrestrial life hangs, a life without protective armour, which he traded in against a liquid currency that disappeared along with his initial enthusiasm for the world.The passage from angelic to human existence also marks a simultaneous move from contemplation to action; to positive action. Two conditions of human existence that Cassiel gains are the perception of colour; i.e. a form of subjectivity that carries with it the burden of pleasure and pain and which, like colour, is not as such a property of the world but of man's perception of it; and action: an active subjectivity that spreads, permeating the world with itself.Wenders' preferred diegesis - or narrative space -, that of the metaphor, is remarkable for two reasons: on one hand, the open sky is the sphere of flight and benevolence; on the other hand, the depths of the earth represent evil. Cassiel, moving through this metaphorical space, encounters various symbolic persons: the trapeze artists, terrestrial angels with their comfortable but intermittent flight; Damiel, his silent but sympathetic companion; the melancholic, stockinged bartender; and representatives of the forces of evil, whose presence is a condition necessary for the execution of Cassiel's initial good deed, as well as for his death later on. An elevated point of view dominates the film, for example the acrobatics with the elastic chord to which Cassiel abandons himself in longing memory of his flight, or the transportation of the crates of arms along a suspended chain of carriers and catchers. Even in the depths of the earth, good resides in the upper part of the given space.Descent into the domain of the infernal gods is a condition commonly associated with its opposite metaphor of elevation and rebirth. In the subterranean zone, traditionally associated with evil, the memory of the recent Nazi past is poignant. Cassiel encounters signs of destruction here: pornography, symbol of the degenerate hero; and weapons, symbols of death. The end of the tunnel, the exit from the "natural burella"[3], seems to suggest that Cassiel has reached a place of ascension; the possibility of flight is renewed.In flight, Cassiel first saves the little girl and then dies, and so both the film and the life of an angel come to an end. These events adhere to a standard narrative model and, as such, are pretextuous. Cassiel's benevolent action consumes his terrestrial raison d'être, stripping it of meaning. For beyond this point, life can only become corrupted. Death is a necessity that is, as usual, administered by the ill-willed adversary who acts not in his own interest - which is the principal inconsistency of evil - but as part of a greater design that, in spite of him, leads to completion. Evil, then, does not have its own designs, but is a means to an end. Its essence is non-existence.This is Wenders' theodicy[4]. The evil adversaries appear to be void of any psychological depth. Hence, the film dissolves any residue of manchean[5] restlessness with a clear optimism: the theory that evil simply does not exist. That is the background to the story, but in the foreground, an angel has become a human being who, before launching himself into what he feels will be his last flight, experiences a fear, the deeply human fear of death, a fear that, for humans, is an absolute certainty.Death, then, stops action and freezes time, its necessary condition for action to occur. It is time that dissolves the angel's defences, that cynically brings his life to an end, that only stops with death. It must stop so that Cassiel may pass from the restrictive human time to the dilated time of the angels.This certainly marks a return, but not a repetition. Cassiel does not simply return to his initial state, out of reach of human emotions. Repetition is impossible, for life is as subtle as a razor-blade that separates two eternities. It cannot now be wished away, as if it had never existed. Cassiel is now beyond human passions.The last word goes to Rilke - that great poet of the angels: "We too/ have but one time. Never a second. But the having been terrestrial, seems unforgettable." (R. M. Rilke; Duineser Elegien, IX).
[1] Latin - here and now
[2] Punctiform: Small, speck-like.
[3] natural burella: a dark, underground vault, possibly quoted from Dante's Inferno, (XXXIV, pp. 98-99) "natural burella / ch'avea mal suolo e di lume disagio"
[4] Theodicy: the vindication of divine providence in view of the existence of evil.[5] Manchean: Theo. Theory that god and evil are evenly balanced in the universe, based on two underlying principles; e.g. Mind and matter, form and content- in any domain of reality. (Dualism).
por Rosario Armieri
Rivista semestrale di arte, critica e filosofia estetica. Anno II - No. 1, Milano. Winter/Spring 1995.
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