“Why Can’t I Be Good?” — A Song For Cassiel in Wim Wenders’ “Faraway, So Close!”

I watched “Faraway, So Close!” — Wim Wender’s epic sequel to his 1987 film “Wings of Desire” — for the first time the other day. I’d almost forgotten about its existence, so little is it discussed, until it got a small mention at a screening of Wings of Desire as part of the BFILove season recently.

For those unfamiliar with that film, it is a thing of beauty, an unsurpassed piece of storytelling pure in its intent and unashamedly positive in its outlook. In divided Berlin, two guardian angels — Damiel and Cassiel — watch over and comfort the city’s inhabitants. Damiel falls in love with a woman, and becomes human so that they can be together. That’s all, really. Cinema as poetry.

Not discussed much, however, is its sequel, which follows the same characters and takes place in the same city. It’s a difficult film to love, even like, when shadowed by the loving wingspan of the first film. But liberate yourself from such comparisons, and how beautiful it is too!

It’s set 6 years after the first film. Berlin is unified; the world is a different place. The world of the film has transformed too. It’s brighter, somehow uglier. Western influence seep into the threads of the story — there are guns, gangsters and Nazis. But underneath it all, the story is the same — an angel, motivated by love, joins the world by becoming part of it.

This time it is Cassiel who takes the plunge. He arrives with the same naivety as his friend, his entry into the world motivated by the same compassion for life that brought Damiel down to earth. For him, in the cold winter air, the city was full of discovery, every detail full of wonder and colour. But things don’t pan out like this for Cassiel. He gambles, drinks and robs his way to destitution on the streets of Berlin. A fall from grace indeed.

How can it be that two former angels end up enacting stories so drastically different that they are almost unrecognisable from one another?

Of course, they are no longer angels. They are human, subject to all the love and pain that we are. Cassiel’s plight is as relatable to us in misery and confusion as Damiel’s journey is in joy and trust. The differences in their stories give us two different perspectives: on the purity of love and the confusion and pain of being a human trying to find it. But they share the same heart.

Perhaps for all of us our lives at certain points attain the air of poetry, however briefly. Mostly, they are a mess of words, singular and unconnected, the occasional fragment of a sentence bubbling into existence before dissolving once again into gibberish. We can’t say how time will affect us or the story it will choose to tell. Poor Cassiel is just a victim of time. Indeed, time is even personified in his story, enticing Cassiel into making decisions which he ultimately has no volition over. Yet time isn’t portrayed as a villain. It just is.

In his most desperate moment Cassiel implores: “Why can’t I be good?” But he isn’t a villain either. He just is. Poor Cassiel.

Such moral ambiguity might be absent from Wings of Desire, but the two stories are as entwined as any sequel. Taken together, they tell us that for all its misery life is a wild but beautiful thing. It is their differences that make them both equally deserving of our attention. If Wings of Desire holds a special place in your heart, spare a thought for Cassiel and give “Faraway, So Close” some love.

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