Wow--fantastic reply, karmajuice. Thank you so much.
FWIW, I don't regard poetry as a "pejorative descriptor." I wasn't commenting on it in any aesthetically evaluative sense, but rather my initial personal response.
However, I am resistant to the notion that poetry is inherently better than or elevated over prose, an argument that has an irritating persistence in lit circles. I get that this division between poetic and prosaic speech is central to the film's aesthetic, but at the same time, Damiel says that the angels learned language from humans, so it's not as if poetry then exists, even within the film, as a "pure" language that's then corrupted into prose. If anything, it's the poetic language that's somehow inferior precisely
because as you point out, it's detached from the practicality of everyday use, a fascinating twist to be sure. If the angels learned language--both prosaic and poetic--from humans, then their use of the latter is a conscious choice rather than the result of an aptitude limited by their celestial status. There's an essentialism manifested in the angels' poetic language that just doesnt' ring true to me.
Just to be clear, none of what I'm saying contradicts your argument, which is very convincing. I'm just saying that even within the logic of
Wings's aesthetic, I find the division between angelic/poetic and human/prosaic speech less effective than the use of b&w vs. color or the ability of humans to touch objects vs. the "pretense" of an angel picking up a pen.
karmajuice wrote: We only come close to poetry again once, I think: when the man (formerly an angel) confronts the trapeze girl. It's the scene in the film I'm most ambivalent about, but maybe it's a different sort of poetry, a different sort of transcendent experience.
I'm also ambivalent about this scene, probably because not long before, she was taking delight in the worldly pleasures of drinking with her fellow carnies and feeling alive. She comes across as a little too idealized, even after Damiel, now a human, meets her in real life. Perhaps it's a different sort of poetry, but to me this scene works against so much of what the film's been doing for the previous two hours.
Anyway, thanks again for your thoughtful reply, which has indeed helped me to appreciate the film a great deal more (even as I quibble with it).
I'll continue to take my chances with Blu.
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