Faraway, So Close!

FAR AWAY, SO CLOSE!, the unnecessary sequel to the superlative WINGS OF DESIRE, has two special treats that make it worth the viewing: it tells us whatever happened to WINGS' Damiel and Marion, and it gives us Willem Dafoe as one of cinema's best demons. WINGS fans will be delighted to find Damiel and Marion happily married, very much in love, and the parents of an adored daughter who's developing gymnastics skills of her own. That's sweet, and I'm a sucker for sweet, but Dafoe's performance here is what really brings the goods home.

Here's the setup: Cassiel the Angel is feeling the angst. Growing tired of watching, he's ready to put his hand in the mix. When events conspire to push him into making an abrupt choice, he does the right thing and sheds his angelic nature so that he may walk among the humans. I was ready for a different take on assimilation into a foreign world, but the film's actually a little disappointing, here. Cassiel has an innocence that strikes me as ridiculous, and while his adventures culminate in an appropriate and satisfying way, I was much more interested in Dafoe's demon.

The character is never clearly identified as a demon, but he has the ability to shift between the angelic and the mundane world, which makes him neither angel nor human. I doubt that he's the Devil, though he could be, because I get the sense that Wenders' major theological antagonists are somehow more cosmic than the angels he's shown us thus far. That the character is Satanic in the Hebraic sense of the word, I have no doubt: he describes himself not as merciless, but as pitiless: a prosecutor who will pursue and aggravate every flaw; who will create temptations and then pass judgement when men succumb. And Dafoe, cinema's finest Christ, plays him just right. He's seductive, friendly, and mean. He's brutally harsh, engaged yet calculating, and he neither expects nor gives quarter.

That's why I don't understand the climax. Why does he do what he does, and what does that mean about his relationship with Cassiel and Raphaela (Cassiel's angelic friend)? And speaking of the climax, where did that minor villain come from?

I think the answers may be found on an editing room floor somewhere, but you know what? It doesn't really matter. In ten years, I'm not going to remember FAR AWAY, SO CLOSE!'s plot points. I am, however, going to remember that Dafoe performance. What an actor.