Thread by @ghweldon

1992. I’m backpacking through Europe for a few months. Which is a cliche, I know, but as cliches go, it’s a good’un. I’ve sewed a Canadian flag on my backpack and go from hostel to hostel being unfailingly polite and pretending to like hockey.

I take the overnight train from Vienna to Berlin. Standing room only. When we get to Berlin I’m hungry and sleep-deprived. I proceed to take myself on a tour of WINGS OF DESIRE sites. Potsdammerplatz. The Victory Column. The Staatsbibliotek. The Kaiser Wilhelm Church.

I’m hallucinating, seeing angels everywhere. It’s a gray day. I turn a corner and find an actual not-hallucinated circus setting up. I sit and watch the big top rise. Dozing occasionally.

I’ve been living off bread, fruit and cheese, but I decide to treat myself to a meal.

I step out of the restaurant and notice a line of people waiting to be let into a theater across the street. I check the marquee: Nick Cave reading from his new book AND THE ASS SAW THE ANGEL. (In my memory the reading starts at midnight, but that can’t be right, right?)

I get a ticket, and sit there marveling at the universe when the lights go down. Cave steps out and starts reading - bellowing, really - “IT WAS EUCHRID WHO PIERCED THE CAUL-“ and then I pass out. It’s the most renovating, restful sleep of my life.

Anyway this is all just to say: WINGS OF DESIRE is a life-changing movie fueled by Bruno Ganz’s ability to stare down the barrel of the camera and radiate pure, abject love - for Marion in particular, and for humanity in general. Rest in Power.