wings of desire

I had tried to see the movie before last weekend, but due to a Netflix mishap, that didn't happen.
A.R.T is putting on an adaptation of the movie, and I had the good fortune to go on Saturday. I was a little concerned because I had read some less than favorable reviews of the production, but I was also excited because I love going to the theatre and several people that I think highly of have all praised the story.

The play was fantastic. It started out disconnected and slow, I wasn't really sure that I would be able to sit through an hour and forty minutes of it. The dialogue, mixed with the music--often droning, slightly dissonant, I really liked most of it, actually--set a tone of dreaminess and overall sense of being lost. And at first, the sense of being lost was overwhelming and I found myself listening to the music more than the dialogue. But then, like looming cloud cover, not sure what direction it will go or what it will bring, the play opened up to reveal a beautiful story of love and about how living in real time and experiencing life as it comes is the most magical thing. One of the characters in the play is an aerialist, and the grace and beauty in which her body moves through the air is stunning. The last scene of the play is so moving I had to stop myself from sobbing, a feeling only comparable to the first time I saw Sex and Lucia. When the movie ended I burst, projectile tears, from the beauty and intense love, the feeling of being one with someone and knowing that you fit with them in a way that no one else can. Wings of Desire has the same sentiment, and seeing it before your eyes, in dead silence, among hundreds of people, these two people wrapped around each other in mid air, truly one in their love for another; not one person, but two people moving fluidly, individually, around each other, in each other, was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

If you can go, you should. It is only around for another week.