A third Wings of Desire centering on the angels that watch over us, is not in the cards, German director Wim Wenders said today at the Cannes press conference for his latest in competition title at the fest, Perfect Days.
“I don’t think I would go back to the idea of angels, if anything this comes pretty close,” Wenders said about Perfect Days.
Wings of Desire, which won Wim Wenders best director in 1987 at Cannes, and its sequel, Faraway, So Close!, which won him the Grand Jury Prize, explore the lives of angels who opt to lose their immortal wings and fall to Earth, tending to problems on the ground. The first installment took place in a divided Berlin with the Wall, while the 1993 sequel is set in the unified German city.
“My angels forever disappeared in the sky,” said Wenders referring to the franchise’s late actors Peter Walk and Bruno Ganz.
Wenders referred to the main protag in Perfect Days, the toilet cleaner Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) as “an angel. Not many people see him. To a lot of people, he’s invisible like the angels.”
In Perfect Days, Hirayama seems utterly content with his simple life as a cleaner of toilets in Tokyo. Outside of his very structured everyday routine he enjoys his passion for music and for books. And he loves trees and takes photos of them. A series of unexpected encounters gradually reveal more of his past.
Wenders sprung to the idea for the movie after being invited by the producers to photograph Japanese toilets, in order to make a short film or series of short films; venues the director called “beauties”.
“I was asked ‘would you come to Tokyo and look at these amazing places. I don’t have to be asked twice to go to Tokyo,” Wenders said.
The filmmaker emphasized, that he shot the film “fast and furious. I’m not referring to a certain movie. We shot fast and furious again.”
As Deadline first reported, Neon is closing a deal for North American rights to Cannes competition title from The Match Factory in the mid to high six figures.
“This is a very spiritual film for me,” says Wenders, “Some how we’re in similar territory.”