FARAWAY, SO CLOSE!
(IN WEITER FERNE, SO NAH!)
A film review by Daniel Nesmith
Copyright 1993 Daniel Nesmith
Starring Otto Sanders, Bruno Ganz, Nastassja Kinski, Solveig Dommartin, Willem Dafoe, Peter Falk, Ruediger Volger, Ingo Schmitz Cameos by Mikhail Gorbachev and Lou Reed Music by Laurent Petitgant Wwith songs by Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Nick Cave and others
They're all around us; though we think they're far away, they're really quite close. At least in Berlin. "They" are the angels. In Wenders's WINGS OF DESIRE (DER HIMMEL UEBER BERLIN) we met them for the first time. They live in an abstract world of black and white, observing us, comforting us. They are, they emphasize, "messengers, not the message." Wenders's FARAWAY, SO CLOSE!, which won the special jury prize at Cannes this year, returns once again to Berlin.
An angel, giving up his powers in order to become human, to feel and hear, to taste and smell for the first time, is once again Wenders's theme. In WINGS OF DESIRE (WOD), the angel Damiel (Bruno Ganz) became human for the love of a woman. His friend Cassiel (Otto Sanders), who is the focal point of FARAWAY, SO CLOSE! (FSC), becomes human almost accidentally when he can no longer remain just an observer, and must intervene in our world. Unlike Damiel, who has become an entrepreneur in post-Wall Berlin with a family and friends, Cassiel, though unselfish and self-sacrificing, does not know where to begin. He quickly finds himself in trouble, and his good intentions only lead to tragedy.
Willem Dafoe as Emit Flesti makes Cassiel's life difficult. Dafoe turns in a wonderful performance; his aggressive verbal sparring with still-angel Raphaela (Nastassja Kinski), as well as his lecturing of Cassiel, is a treat.
The plot of the film is winding and not completely easy to follow, reminding one of Wenders's UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD (UEW), and there are many themes involved. Once again Peter Falk (playing himself) is in Berlin, this time for an exhibit of his drawings. Falk's role is here larger than in WOD, and less introspective. The plot of the movie which Falk was supposedly making in WOD becomes a subplot in FSC, with the German-born American Anton Becker (Ingo Schmitz) returning to Berlin and looking for his sister, from whom he was separated during the war. Unfortunately, Tony has become something of a gangster during his years in Detroit, and Cassiel becomes his servant.
There are funny moments in FSC, such as Tony's rescue by Cassiel from his Mafia enemies, as well as some very touching scenes, where Cassiel wonders "why can't I be good?" Sanders, whose role in WOD was secondary, does a masterful job of playing the man who wants only to do the right thing, but who can't quite pull it off. A man who wishes he could go back to being an angel.
One could call FSC something of a hybrid between WOD (very intellectual, little action) and UEW (fast-moving, humor-filled, but rambling and disorganized, unfocused ideas). Ironically, FSC (as UEW was) is a victim of one of its own themes: that time for us humans is fleeting, that there is so much to do. Wenders has tried to pack more into this film (which runs just under two and a half hours) than it can hold. The murkiness of some plot turns is unsettling. There is some heavy-handed symbolism (such as Dafoe's character's name), and many references to Germany's racial problems, past and present. Gorbachev, certainly a hero in Germany, makes a cameo in an appearance that could have been written by his own public relations firm.
Still, the film, while flawed, is well worth seeing. Not for those who are shy of subtitles (at least five languages are used at times).
Three stars (out of four).
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