Peter Falk – Christian Sauvé

Der Himmel über Berlin [Wings of Desire] (1987)

ByChristian Sauvé 2019-10-232023-03-19 Movie Review

(In French, On TV, October 2019) There are so many reasons why I should not even like Wings of Desire. The deliberate use of monochrome, the stream-of-consciousness dialogue (is it dialogue if it’s eavesdropping on people’s thoughts?), the languid pacing, the improv-style acting, the pretentious philosophical claptrap, the very familiar dramatic arc … and so on. On paper and initially on-screen, Wings of Desire is an almost prototypical art-house film meant for a very specific audience. But gradually, almost begrudgingly, I ended up warming to the results. There’s a subtle grace to the way writer-director Wim Wenders uses a downplayed portrayal of angels to explore a full-spectrum take on humanity, portraying their black-and-white coolness against the colour perceived by the human characters. Peter Falk shows up playing a version of himself (even referencing “Columbo”) that turns out to be a fallen angel. Otto Sander also plays an angel with a mixture of detachment and empathy. But the acting focus here falls on Bruno Ganz convincingly portraying an angel yearning for human feelings, falling in love with a trapeze artist played by the captivating Solveig Dommartin. Clever understated touches (overcoats, libraries, children of course perceiving angels) add to the overall effect, while pre-reunification Berlin, cut by its wall, is shown in stark detail. Even the use of black-and-white has a plot purpose—and I surprisingly found the last colour portion of the film blurrier and less impressive than its initial black-and-white presentation. The film peaks somewhere near its third quarter, both in imaginative detail and in execution—the ending feels satisfying but pat, possibly from having influenced many other takes on similar material. While I don’t love Wings of Desire, I do end up liking it more than I thought, which hints at its more universal appeal than could be anticipated.

Movie Review

The Great Race (1965)

ByChristian Sauvé 2018-09-152019-09-12 Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2018) I sometimes do other things while watching movies, but as The Great Race went on, I had to put those other things away and restart the film. There is an astonishing density of gags to its first few minutes (from the title sequence, even) that require undivided attention. While the first act of the film does set up expectations that the second half fails to meet, it does make The Great Race far more interesting than expected. Clearly made with a generous budget, this is a comedy that relies a lot on practical gags, built on a comic foundation that harkens back to silent-movie stereotypes. Making no excuses for its white-versus-black characters, the film features Tony Curtis as an impossibly virtuous hero, facing the comically dastardly antagonist played with gusto by Jack Lemmon in one of his most madcap comic performance. Meanwhile, Natalie Wood has never looked better as the romantic interest (seeing her parade in thigh-high black stockings unarguably works in the film’s favour) and both Peter Falk and Keenan Wynn are able seconds. The film’s visual gags are strong, and so is writer/director Blake Edwards’s willingness to go all-out of his comic set pieces: The legendary pie fight is amusing, but I prefer the Saloon brawl for its sense of mayhem. There is a compelling energy to the film’s first hour, as pleasantly stereotyped characters are introduced, numerous visual gags impress and the film’s sense of fun is firmly established. Alas, that rhythm lags a bit in the last hour, with an extended parody of The Prisoner of Zenda that falls flat more than it succeeds (although it does contain that pie fight sequence). Still, it’s a fun film and the practical nature of the vehicular gags makes for a change of pace from other comedies. I liked it quite a bit more than I expected.