Faraway, So Close!

Faraway, So Close! (In weiter Ferne, so nah!, 1993) is Wim Wenders' sequel to Wings of Desire — a film you can watch online on iFILM that took the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in its release year.

Angel Cassiel (Otto Sander) has watched over Berlin for centuries without ever crossing the line. The city is reunified now but unsettled: arms dealers circling, old wounds far from healed, and too little time for any of it to make sense. Cassiel catches a girl falling from a balcony — and in that moment the world shifts from grey to color. He is human. Damiel (Bruno Ganz), who made the same crossing in the original, is already living the mortal life; Willem Dafoe plays something ambiguous between tempter and guide; Peter Falk returns as a visiting actor who always seems to know more than he should. Mikhail Gorbachev appears as himself — not a symbol, just a man with a cameo.

Where Wings of Desire was a quiet poem about solitude, this one is heavier and less patient — a film about what you do with the time you bought by giving up eternity. Watch Faraway, So Close! (1993) online on iFILM.