Postmodern cinema and postmodern culture : information-communication , otherness and history in Wenders ’ s Himniel iiber Berlin rWings of Desire )

W hal one m ay call ihe obscenity o f inform ation is the com m on thread that runs through W im Wenders's fi lm Wings o f Desire, postm odern culture a n d Baudrillard's radical cultural critique. The latter show s that com m un ica tion has degenerated in to the availability o f in form ation (in advanced, post-industrial c o u n tr ie s , a t le a s t) , w h ile W e n d e rs ’s f i lm p r o v id e s a p a ra d ig m f o r th e p r o b le m a tiz a t io n o f com m unica tion and personal history in a postm odem culture o f fragm entation.


Intrcxluction
W hat do angelic sentiency (a la W enders), Baudrillard's cultural critique and postmodern cu lture have in com m on?In a word: the obscenity of inform ation.W im W enders's hauntingly beautiful film, Him mel uber Berlin (English title: Wings o f Desire) is a narrative juxtaposition, and an eventual exchange of angelic and human modes of perception.It is also a sim u lta n e o u s p ro b le m a tiz a tio n and c e le b ra tio n o f th e possibility o f hum an tem porality as personal history and of communication in a cultural context characterized by fragm entation and what Lyotard calls "the temporary contract" (Harvey, 1990:113).This rath er condensed description of the film clearly requires considerable elaboration, including a reconstruction of its narrative, however brief.Let me therefore begin with an apt evocation of "the condition of postmodernity" (which also happens to be the title of its source) by David Harvey.(H arv ey , 1990:301-302).

Cultural fragmentation
Harvey's verbal collage not only signifies the structure of postm odern culture, but at once touches upon im portant aspects of postm oderm film -particularly Wings o f Desire, as well as others such as W oody A llen 's Zelig and R idley Scott's Blade Runner, which will be referred to again.All three of these films articulate the sense of fragm entation -cultural and personal -that Harvey captures so well in the earlier quotation, and problem atize the connections betw een time, space, history, self and others in different ways.A lthough the them atization in this article will focus on and develop very specific aspects of Wings o f Desire, Harvey's perceptive discussion of the film is utilized in many respects.

From eternity to time in Wings o f Desire
In Wings o f Desire this cultural fragm entation is presented to us in the first place from the spatio-tem porally u n b o u nd ed v antage p o in t(s) of two angels.U n fe tte re d by hum an perspectivism , they have full audiovisual access to hum ans and th eir p rivate thoughts.These individuals come across as isolated, and their thoughts as unrelated and ephem eral, and are recorded in monochrome and monotone.(Cf.Blue Thunder as fictional technolo gical approximation of angelic vision and hearing.)The overwhelming impression created by the angelic perception of labyrinthine living spaces and th eir inh ab itan ts, is one of isolation, division, alienation and non-communication.This is underscored by the fact that the film -narrative is set in Berlin, w here The W all was until not so long ago a kind of archetype of the dividedness o f the hum an race.The sequence o f audiovisual images makes it clear, however, that Berlin is not unique in this respect, but simply representative of all the world's cities interconnected by global information-and transportation-networks, the implication being that, the advanced international inform ation-and com m unicationnetworks notwithstanding, divisions remain intact everywhere.

Transcending the angelic dimension o f eternity
Simplifying to the extreme, and ignoring sub-them es for the time being, one could say that Wings o f Desire enacts the story of an angel, Damiel.Damiel is increasingly dissatisfied and frustrated at his inability to transcend the angelic dimension of eternity, in order to interact with hum ans, in tim e and in bounded space.H e sh ares his desire to experience the 'heaviness' of human existence with a fellow angel -a desire, which incidentally, makes the English title of the film very appropriate.To use a fam iliar distinction from a novel by M ilan K undera -albeit here generating different connotations in a d ifferent context -D am iel is increasingly burdened by the 'unbearable lightness of being', and drawn to the 'heaviness' of human becoming.
Although the causal link is not established explicitly in the film, this could at least partly be because the angels' attem pts to influence hum an affairs are not gu aran teed to succeed.The audience witnesses some successes on their part, but also failures -the young man, for exam ple, comm its suicide over his lost love despite the angels' attem p ts to prev en t it.These attem pts do not take the form of actual, volitional interventions in the course of hum an action, however: being outside hum an tim e, the angels can at best try to offer spiritual comfort by their presence.They cannot influence hum an decisions directly, or, as one of them points out ruefully, they cannot really take p art in hum ans' lives -they can merely pretend to do so.The angel Damiel, already drawn to the 'here and now' of human existence, develops an interest in a beautiful trapeze artist, Marion.Although Harvey does not com m ent on the im plications of her being a trap eze artist, it is significant.O f all 'h eavy' h u m an s, th e tra p e z e a rtis t, w ho d efie s th e laws o f g ravity, n o t only thus ap p ro x im ates the 'lig h tn ess' o f th e angels, b u t exem plifies th e p recario u sn ess and contingency of human spatio-temporality -which is precisely what attracts Damiel.
Here, already, is a potential point of encounter between Damiel and a human, in the midst o f a postm odern landscape of fragm entation and interpersonal isolation.Add to this that Marion's act is located within the enclosed space of the circus tent (something that Harvey, [1990:318] does consider), which constitutes one of the spaces in the film (the other one being the library) where a fragile sense of hum an identity exists and interaction can take place, and the stage is set for D amiel's momentous decision.A fter all, a tent has long been associated with a nomadic existence, signifying brief, interm ittent sojourns in the course of a life of travelling (or of life as a journey, perhaps even a quest).A nd the circus is the place that signifies the (pre-electronic media) spectacle where human daring and hard-won skills challenge human 'heaviness' and fallibility continually.As every circus artiste knowsanyone could fall, any time.It makes perfect sense that this environment, and this woman M arion in it, attract D am iel so powerfully.His decision to exchange angelic eternity for hum an history entails his falling into the tem poral realm of m ortality -an interesting inversion of the fall of Lucifer, whose fall, it must be rem em bered, was the result of his project of pride.D am iel's fall, in contrast, is not p rom pted by the (angelic) hubris of aspiring to divinity, but corresponds instead with the original lapse, to the extent that it ren d ers him truly hum an.Insofar as th e film -narrative em phasizes th e contingency, alienation, precariousness, mortality, fragility and vulnerability of the hum an condition, to g eth er with the fact that this is precisely w hat the angel D am iel finds so powerfully attractive about it, W enders's film is an anti-Platonic celebration of radical finitude and contingency.
2 2 T he narrative problematizing o f interpersonal communication and personal history W hat has been stated about the film -narrative should not be construed to m ean that the 'hum an condition' is presented in a free-floating, apparently culture-independent manner.The isolation and alienation of the people who inhabit its diegetic space are clearly shown to be the anthropological constituents of a postmodern media-, information-and diversified capital-saturated culture -which provides the necessary context for W enders's narrative problem atization of interpersonal comm unication and personal history.In short, the film explores the question: are comm unication and personal history (i.e. a sense of continuity and identity) possible in a culture such as this?This question is all the m ore im portant, given the conviction on the part of someone like Fredric Jam eson (Nicholls, 1991:1-2) that postmodernism is a predom inantly spatial phenomenon, with the problematics of time and history -so characteristic of modernism -all but eclipsed in a postm odern culture.Peter N icholls (1991), for one, challenges Jam eso n 's co ntention, citing L yotard and various instances of recent writing to show that a sense of the problem atics o f tem porality may indeed be located in the postm odern.Similarly, in so far as Wings o f Desire takes up the them e of etern ity (w ith its lim itless percep tio n ) and tem porality (w ith its challenging lim itations), W enders also appears to contest Jam eson's contention th at the them atics of spatiality constitute the major distinction between the m odern and the postmodern.disastrousness of which (emphasizing his newly acquired human vulnerability) is averted by his fellow angel who places him on the w estern side of the Wall.Harvey (1990:318-319) observes th a t D a m ie l's d e cisio n is trig g e re d by tw o "cataly tic m om ents" -w hich, incidentally, may also be read as transitional with regard to his im pending change of status, given the fact that both events involve a certain closeness (itself a comm unicational motif) to hum an beings.In the first of these, D am iel sees him self in M ario n 's d ream o f the dazzlingly bright 'o th er' and follows her into a nightclub w here she feels and responds to his presence while she is dancing by herself.The second event involves P eter (Columbo) Falk, playing an international m edia star (him self!) who happens to be an ex-angel that took the plunge some tim e before, and who, sensing the invisible D am iel's presence where he is drinking coffee at a stall, addresses the surprised angel, telling him how good it is to live in hum an time and experience the sensory variety of hum an materiality.
W hen D am iel wakes up as a human, he perceives colours for the first time, including the redness of his own blood (from a newly-made-possible wound sustained in his fall), which he identifies linguistically by interrogating a nonplussed passer-by.This is a significant event in terms of the them e of this article, because it differentiates between unidimensional inform ation (the m onochrom atic om ni-vision o f the angels) and com m unication, which always presupposes an elem ent of otherness that simultaneously necessitates and vindicates the com m unication betw een two or m ore persons.E qually significant is the fact that D am iel has to app ro priate finite hum an spatiality by traversing the city on foot, in the course of w hich a c erta in sen se o f co h e re n ce em erges, rep lacin g th e overw helm ing impression of fragm entation th at issues from the (fictional) angelic omni-vision, however paradoxical that may seem.Harvey captures the difference betw een these two, the finite and the suprafinite, where he comm ents (Harvey, 1990: The economic power of money in the hum an world is em phasized by the fact that, having becom e hum an, D am iel needs money to survive.T he fact th at m oney, like advanced inform ation-system s, surpasses natio n al b arriers, thus hom ogenizing global econom ic space, is brought hom e by the scene on the set w here P eter Falk is filming.T he latter, realizing who Damiel is when he shouts to the m edia star through a fence which separates them , overcomes the constructed barrier by talking to the newly hum an ex-angel through the fence and kindly giving him some money."Damiel's entry into this hum an world", says H arvey (1990:319), "is now firmly located w ithin the co-ordinates o f social space, social time, and the social power of money".

3 The attem pt to create a fake present history
The eventual m eeting betw een M arion and D amiel happens at the sam e nightclub where she felt his presence before.A fter tentatively eyeing each other for a while they come face to face in an adjacent bar.E arlier, after the circus had closed down for lack of money (Lyotard's short-term contract), Marion had been resolute about making a story for herself, even w ithout the circus.(H arvey [1990:318] draws attention to the function of the photo im age in this context, w here M arion im agines using a p h o to -a u to m a t to c re ate a new identity, something which is symptomatic of an era or society w here the sense o f continuity im parted by a c o h ere n t tra d itio n is ab sen t.In Blade R unner th e rep lican ts reso rt to photographs as well, to construct or fake the personal history which they lack).Now, in D am iel's p resen ce (in the b ar), she p re p a re s to e n ac t h er (hi-)sto ry with him -to "supersede being with becoming", in Harvey's words (1990:319).Damiel, too, is ready to experience his new-found, mundane spatio-temporality to the full.W hat follows articulates an im agined an tith esis to the fragm entation and discontinuity o f advanced capitalist (postm odern) society.Marion makes it clear that she has a common project in mind for the two of them -a project that would overcom e arbitrariness and tem porariness, and w ould som ehow forge so m eth in g u n iv ersal o u t o f th e p a rtic u la r (a p ro b le m th a t postm odern art and architecture have always struggled with, in their attem pt to m ediate betw een difference and the universalistic dem ands of m odernism ).F rom the lengthy discourse a new sense of wholeness and identity em erges, linked to an ideal for all of m ankind -a renew ed project of creating a story of unity-in-difference through a shared decision.The narrative ends with Damiel helping Marion with her trapeze act after their first night together: the angel-become-human reassuringly keeping a watchful eye lest this lightest of heavy humans should slip and fall -a striking image of interhum an support.The final shots also include footage of an old man, the storyteller, whose im portance will also be touched upon.
It is tru e that, as H arvey observes (1990:320,322) the film 's ending ten d s to becom e som ewhat banal and suffused with rom anticism as a possible source of dealing with the distressing conditions of an alienating culture.T he fact th at M arion and D am iel are prepared to learn from each other, however, constitutes a communicational paradigm, and explains H arvey's rem ark, th at he in terp re ts the p art of the film th at deals with th eir relationship "... as an attem pt to resurrect som ething of the m odernist spirit of human com m unication, togetherness, and becoming, out of the ashes of a m onochrom atic and dead-pan postmodernist landscape of feeling".

Postmodernity, hyperreality and the obscenity of information
To be able to appreciate what is at stake here, a d etour is necessary through this p ost m odern landscape.The principal guide on this occasion will be Jean Baudrillard, whose radical critique of contem porary postindustrial culture provides an interpretive grid for cultural artifacts like W ngs o f Desire.It is im portant to rem em ber here that despite the differences betw een a modernist and a postm odernist aesthetic -the fact that the former counters conditions of fragmentation, flux and ephemerality in m odern society by insisting on (inter alia) unity, functionality, and rational planning, while the latter tends to revel in these differences, fragm entation and 'opaque o th ern ess' -th ere is a strong continuity between them.Postmodernism may be regarded as a kind of crisis within modernism, one which m anifests itself as scepticism concerning questions of universality, immutability, m etatheory, and so on (Harvey, 1990:116).But the point is th at both -modernism and postm odernism -are responses, in varying aesth etic and critical m odes, to the socio cu ltu ral effects of m o d ern izatio n .T hese effects, som e o f w hich have already been mentioned, are related to what Harvey (1990:147, 240-307) calls "time-space compression" -a concept the coining of which must be placed in the context of Berm an's contention, that m odernity is "a certain m ode of experience of space and time" (cf. H arvey, 1990:201).N eedless to say, the m o d ern ism /p o stm o d ern ism d eb ate is located , to a considerable degree, within the param eters established by this insight, and involves a host of thinkers that include D aniel Bell, Fredric Jam eson, Jurgen H aberm as, Jean-Francois Lyotard and Je a n B au d rillard , to m en tio n b u t a few."T im e-space com pression", w hich H arvey associates primarily with the capitalist world, implies that, as illustrated by the following quotation (Harvey, 1990:147): This State of affairs is exactly the opposite of common belief, which holds that information 'creates' communication, as it were -in other words, that the two processes are essentially one and the same.However, instead of prom oting com m unication -which, as has been pointed out earlier, presupposes an elem ent of otherness, or a self-transcending realityinform ation destroys its own contents.In order to explain why this happens, Baudrillard invokes his well-known thesis, th at the real has been abolished by an all-encom passing process of simulation in advanced capitalist society.
According to B audrillard the process of sim ulation m eans that, in this kind of society (which, with the exception of 'third world' areas, has virtually become global), we live in a totally simulated world, where the images, symbols, signs and concepts which are ordinarily regarded as mediating reality, have become self-sufficient.In other words, they no longer 'refer' to an object or a world, but comprise a 'hyperreality' of simulation in which we are trapped as in a closed, endlessly self-referential, self-simulating or self-replicating (Blade Runner]), circular process.N ietzsche's 'prison-house of language' has become a prisonhouse of 'sim ulacra'.T hat which people still mistakenly regard as 'real' is manufactured from m em ory banks, com m and m odels and m in iatu rized units -it is no m ore than o p e ra tio n a l (cf.G illies, 1991:51).A lthough it is n o t o f d irect relev an ce h ere, it is interesting to note that this inform ation-perm eated, simulated hyperreality, by destroying the otherness, negativity and 'ontological difference' prerequisite for communication, also underm ines the difference between the real and the imaginary as well as between true and false (G illies, 1991:51), thus effectively invalidating science and critical thought.In If his assessm ent is correct, it means that the shadows on Plato's cave-wall have asserted them selves pervasively in this m odern, so-called enlightened era.T he form ula, that culture, art, science or language m ediates reality, then collapses in the face of a new, unforeseen immediacy in the sense that there is nothing to be m ediated; that 'm edia' is in fact a misnom er because they fabricate (hyper-)reality, and that even the mediation of or by the m edia is a pseudo-m ediation because the term s of the so-called m ediation are determ ined by the media themselves.Hence, total circularity.The way in which Baudrillard develops this vision in the later essay (1985) should highlight its relevance vis-a-vis Wings o f Desire.H ere the transformation of communication is traced in the 'proteinic' structure of networks, feedback and 'generalized interface', w here both public and private space progressively d isap p ear.The form er is invaded and finally assimilated by advertising in its new version, which no longer simply prom otes the sales of com m odities, but becomes the all-pervasive organizing principle, through "om nipresent visibility" of public life and what used to be public scenery (Baudrillard, 1985:129).It is especially in his analysis of the loss of private space, which occurs simultaneously with the lo.ss of public space, that the focal terrain of this paper is mapped out.

The loss o f private space
While public space has lost its character of spectacle, resembling a great depthless screen instead, private space has lost its intimacy -it is 'no longer a secret'.This implies further that the opposition between exterior space as the 'scene of objects', and interiority as the so vereign space of the su b ject has b een o b lite ra te d , resu ltin g in w hat B au d rillard

It is not difficult
to understand what he is writing about here.W hether it is the formerly private, hidden details o f some peasant or tribal communal or family ritual, o r the rockface of som e distant, challenging m o u n tain ; from th e im ag e-ch artin g of global and planetary geography to the media-recording of the most intim ate interhum an transactionseverything has been brought w ithin reach of the 'in fo rm ed ' (b u t un fo rm ed ) m asses in electronically reduced form at. B au d rillard drives hom e th e com m unicational conse quences of this cultural condition in the following passage, which must be quoted in full, given its pertinence for the p resen t them e.R eferring to the lost era of the difference between public and private space, he writes (1985:130-131): C ertain ly , this p riv a te u n iv e rse w as a lie n a tin g to th e e x te n t th a t it s e p a r a te

It is not difficult to grasp the angelic vision-c«m-hearing o f Damiel and his fellow angels in
Wings o f Desire as the im aginative paradigm of this pervasive dim ension of informationcommunication which abolishes all privacy and intimacy, all otherness and difference -in this way undercutting the a priori of communication in the norm ative sen.se, namely, that the reciprocity of com m unication presupposes o th ern ess.T h e hum anizing upshot of D am iel's desire to exchange the obscene omni-visibility and ubiquitous inform ation o f the angelic universe for the limitations of the self-and-other-structured perspectivism of human existence, is this: the degree to which the inform ation-netw orks project a hyperreality of sim ulated worlds which ultim ately exterm inate the interstitial spaces that preserve human privacy and protect the reciprocity of communicative interaction, correlates with the extent to which the potential for interpersonal comm unication is eroded and distorted.
TTie point is -as Baudrillard enables one to see -the readily available information-systems create the illusion that everyone who is exposed to them is m ore inform ed, and hence b etter able to com m unicate, than the m em bers of all previous generations.T he truth, how ever, is th a t, in the place of the alie n a tio n th a t B a u d rillard asso ciates w ith the (o b so lete) o p p o sitio n al coexistence of a public and a p rivate sp h ere, a new kind of alien atio n has ap p eare d .U nlike the o ld er alien atio n , which ju stifies and m otivates comm unication -even if, as in the modernists' work, it is accompanied by epistemological despair -this postmodern alienation of a fragmented, ephem eral culture does not cultivate or vindicate com m unication precisely because it goes hand in hand with the belief in its own superiority as the realization of true communication.The angels in Wings o f Desire often com e across as weary -they are seen resting in the library, for instance -which makes sense given the unbearable lightness of their being, i.e. the indescribable boredom of the instantaneous informational mode to which they are privy.The following rem ark by Harvey therefore comes as no surprise (1990:320-321): After all, one can only desire that which is other, which is not entirely within your reach or obscenely available; implying, not th at this is why D am iel desires M arion, b u t why he desires human desire -the condition of the possibility of experiencing anything as opaque and anyone as other, as desirable.

A descriptive and a normative sen.se of communication
We have to distinguish, therefore, betw een two senses of comm unication -a descriptive and a norm ative sense, respectively.B audrillard uses it in the norm ative sense in the earlier essay (1983:97-98) where he talks about information 'devouring' communication.In the later essay (1985), however, he seems to equate the two, implicitly suggesting that in p o stm o d e rn c u ltu re th e p ro cess is co m p lete: in fo rm a tio n has fin ally assim ilated com m unication; descriptively speaking, com m unication in the inform ational mode is all that is left.This explains W enders's attem pt to resurrect a sense of the normative mode in the process of communication that develops between Damiel and M arion.Two things are im portant here.Firstly, one .shouldquestion Baudrillard's cultural critique, especially with regard to its totalizing character.
Is it not the case that, within the hyperreality of postm odern, advanced capitalist society, there are still areas or, m ore modestly, pockets of genuine comm unication, where actual interpersonal practices approxim ate the comm unicational norm -even if full, reciprocal 'presence' is never actualized?(If it were, it would destroy the a priori of communication, viz. the preservation of otherness, anyway.)Communication in this 'minimal' sense is still a possibility and often an actuality, and I therefore agree with Harvey (1990:291, 300, 351) th at B audrillard -while drawing our atten tio n to im portant cultural transform ationsexaggerates som ewhat.G illies (1991:61), too, criticizes B audrillard while adm itting the provocativeness of his vision.For him, B audrillard's contention that the real, the object, has disappeared, entails the concomitant abolition of history and the future, which further implies that, in (neo-) Marxist term.s,there is no possibility o f redem ption.A fter all, as A dorno knew, there is hope only if what is, is not all that can be.

D oes viable communication presuppose an historical context?
The question of history is im portant here because it resurrects the earlier allusion to the function of the intermittently appearing old man in Wings o f Desire while, at the same time, addressing the other rem aining issue of the adequacy of the com bined story or narrative initiated by D am iel and M arion.Simply put: is a sense of com m on purpose, born of rom antic love, enough to serve as a paradigm for a culture awash in the socio-economic effects o f tim e-space com pression?As H arvey (1990:321) rem inds us, D am iel has no history.(It is striking that, in this respect as well, the timeless angel exemplifies an aspect of postm odernity, viz.its loss of tem p o ral o r h isto rical continuity, o r w hat Jam eso n [1985:119] m etaphorically term s its schizophrenia.)Add to this th e fact that, when they meet, Marion is rootless as well, and the problem assumes frightening proportions.Harvey puts it tersely (1990:321): "Is it possible to set about the project of becom ing a-historically ?"H e then proceeds by arguing that the old storyteller seems to question the viability of such an undertaking.The fact that the storyteller -who understands himself to be the "potential guardian of collective m em ory and history" (H arvey, 1990:317) -is an old person, who w ould have been young befo re ep h em erality and frag m en tatio n becam e pervasive structural featu res o f contem porary culture, m akes him the em bodim ent of memory, a structural property sadly lacking in this culture.
His role is ambiguous because he is a peripheral figure by his own admission: the group of liste n e rs w ho used to g a th e r aro u n d him has d isp e rse d , having b e co m e m utually uncommunicative readers.(Ironically, he frequents the library in an attem pt to preserve a sense of the history of Berlin!)The impre,ssion of societal fragm entation that pervades the film is reinforced when the old man com plains that even language seem s to dissolve into incoherent fragments.On the other hand, however -and this is w here he interrogates the prospects of the project inaugurated by M arion and her ex-angel man -he insists that he cannot give up his narrative task, because w ithout its storyteller m ankind would lose its childhood.It would seem, then, that the old man embodies a corrective to the apparently a-historical project represented by Marion and Damiel.Is W enders telling us that viable comm unication presupposes a narrative or historical context?If this is the case, it would be in ag reem en t w ith this line of th o u g h t in th e w ork o f G a d a m e r, H a b erm a s and M acIntyre, all of whom insist on an in d isp en sab le historical m om ent in in terh u m an communication.
In this way, finally, a problem is posed for postm odernity: given the fact that it lacks a sense of history or continuity -already implied and aggravated by what many critics see as the preponderance of (an aestheticized) spatial sensibility -what critical potential exists, and w here, for a project of com m unication which would or could recu p erate a sense of common purpose without totalizing effects?
T o put it in the language of IVings o f Desire: how does an angelic culture (or one which a.spires to angelicism, anyway (think of the implications of the 'quest for zero defect') make its (re-)entry into hum an tim e and history?The dilem m a that faces M arion and Damiel epitomizes the dilemma facing postmodern culture.

A digression: more postmodern cinema
T o be sure, som e theorists em brace the a-historicality and schizophrenia p rev alen t in contem porary W estern culture (cf.Harvey, 1990:351), attem pting to 'ride the tiger' of timespace com pression.O th ers -such as Ridley Scott and W oody A llen -while providing striking cinem atic images of ephem erality and replication, address this state of affairs in different ways.In Blade Runner, (cf.Harvey, 1990:312) Scott has the replicants destroy their m aker in a classic rebellion of simulacra granted a limited lifespan, again involving a clash of time scales -this time between humans and their replicas who, like Damiel, have no history either.Ironically, in Blade Runner the central character, Deckard, escapes from a decaying, post-industrial Los Angeles with a new-generation replicant, Rachel, who has no built-in limited lifespan, in a bid for happiness.This, however, is not really a satisfactory resolution, despite the reversion to time -by changing Rachel's lifespan -in an attem pt to reach one, and a politically sterile one into the bargain.D espite obvious similarities with Wings o f Desire, Blade Runner fails to address the problem of communication as seriously as the G erm an film does.Both seem ambivalent with regard to the dilemma issuing from the absence of an historical context for the non-hum an agents, and in a certain sense for the humans as well.
Woody A llen's Zelig, on the other hand, while presenting the audience with a chameleon like subject th at changes constantly by replicating the o th er in his im m ediate vicinity, retains a critical-parodic edge because i t "... works both to underline and to underm ine the notion of the coherent, self-sufficient subject as the source of meaning or action", in Linda H utcheon 's words (1989:109).The unstable character Zelig mimics its own culture, while it parodies the idealized modernist subject with its projected unity, integrity and wholeness, in this way questioning th e historical construction of subjectivity and th e public m edia's function in th at process, insofar as the latter is responsible for the pseudo-unity of the endlessly m utating hum an cipher.Allen achieves a notable effect here, by destroying otherness through a ch aracter who incessantly replicates others, ultim ately leaving his audience with the thought-provoking question concerning the requirem ents for a subject of historical significance.
This little excursion on two other examples of postmodern cinema emphasizes the fact that these films, while im itating the structure of their m aterial cultural context, do not do so passively, but engage critically with the problems that confront this culture.The discussion of Wings o f Desire further illustrates that, while a film may reconstruct postmodern culture and its attendant contradictions -Baudrillard would say repetitions, which is contradictory in historical terms, anyway -very effectively, its treatm ent of these may in fact amount to a modernist project for the solution of a postm odern problem.N or should this surprise us, for, as Lyotard observes perspicaciously (1984:79): "A work can becom e m odern only if it is first postmodern.Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent .state,and this state is constant."Seen in this way, m odernism is the movement which counters the endless instability of the postm odern m om ent with stable forms.In these terms.Wings o f Desire exemplifies the conjunction of these two distinguishable, but inseparable cultural modes.

Concluding remarks: what about South Africa?
Some readers may wonder what relevance the present interpretation of Wings o f Desire in terms of modernism and postmodernism could possibly have for the South African cultural, socio-econom ic and political situ atio n .Is this analysis not ap p licab le exclusively to advanced capitalist countries such as (W est-)G erm any, F rance, B ritain and the U nited States?South Africa seems to have cultural hybrid-status com pared to these countries.I would therefo re argue that, although social life in certain m etropolitan areas in South A frica displays the sam e structural features, labelled 'postm odern' -fragm entation and ephemerality -in this essay, it is only partly for the same reason as in advanced capitahst societies, nam ely b ecau se of th e 'tim e-sp ace co m p re ssio n '-effect of th e p ro cess of (capitalist) modernization.One might say, not inaccurately, I believe, that the condition of cultural fragm entation in this country (S.A.) has post-and pre-m odern features.M ore specifically, it is the result o f an initial confrontation betw een a colonized (indigenous) culture and a colonizing (alien) culture in which the la tte r's dom inance and dom ination over the former, seriously affected its historical and narrative continuity as well as its social (including educational and m oral) coherence.This state of affairs continued in p o st colonial tim es and was aggravated to the point of social pathology by coercive structural practices of exclusion (in Foucauldian terms) during the apartheid-epoch.In other words, South A frican society is a fragm ented society for the additional reason (in m etropolitan areas, and for the predo m in an t reason, in rural areas) o f th e ideologically m otivated, socially and politically divisive effect of apartheid practices in law, industry, education, religion, and so on.With this in mind, it should be (terrifyingly) clear that South Africans are faced with the awesome project of overcom ing the legacy o f a pathologically divided history and creating the basis for a united, communicatively interactive 'future history', to put it oxymoronically.This does not, as some may think, require historical am nesia with regard to the tim e of apartheid.K undera (and before him Adorno) has warned about the dangers of forgetting.It requires, precisely, remembering {not com m em orating or celeb ratin g ) the effects of apartheid and expiation for ap arth eid , lest it becom e an empty nam e of no axiological significance for fu tu re g en eratio n s.O nly in this way is in te rp e rso n a l recon ciliatio n possible.A nd, as for postm o d ern culture, this req u ires com m unication desp ite (and motivated by) rem aining barriers.Needless to say, a crucial contribution to such a South A frican com m unicative project could and should com e from educational institutionsprim ary through secondary to tertiary ones.T hese institutions (e.specially universities) have the linguistic, intellectual, scientific -in a word, the rational -resources to initiate and sustain the project of conciliatory, re-integrative comm unication in South Africa.

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paces o f very d iffe re n t w orlds seem to collapse upon ea ch o th e r, m uch as th e w o rld 's co m m o d ities a re a ssem b led in th e su p e rm a rk e t and all m a n n e r o f su b cu ltu res g et ju x tap o sed in th e co n tem p o rary city.D isru p tiv e sp atiality triu m p h s over th e c o h e re n c e o f p ersp ectiv e a n d n a rra tiv e in p o stm o d e rn fic tio n , in exactly Ih e s a m e w ay th a t im p o rte d b e e rs co e x ist w ith lo c al b rew s, lo c a l e m p lo y m e n t co lla p sc s u n d e r th e w eig h t o f fo reig n c o m p e titio n , a n d all th e d iv e rg e n t sp a c e s o f th e w o rld a re assem b led nightly as a collage o f im ages upon th e television screen

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am iel's eventual decision, in Wings o f Desire, to e n te r hum an history, happens in the stre tc h o f n o -m a n 's lan d b etw e e n th e tw o lin es o f th e B e rlin W all, th e p o te n tia l 319): T h is h um an sense o f space a n d m o tio n co n trasts w ith th a t o f angels, e a rlie r d ep ictcd as a h y p er-sp ace o f s p eed in g flashes, e a c h im ag e like a cubist p a in tin g , suggestin g a to ta lly d iffe re n t m o d e o f sp atial experience.D am iel shifts from o n e m o d e to th e o th e r as he e n te rs th e flow o f tim e.
... th e tim e h o riz o n s o f b o th p r iv a te a n d p u b lic d c c is io n -m a k in g h a v e .shrunk,w h ile s a te llite c o m m u n ic a tio n an d d ec lin in g tra n .spo rt c o sts h ave m a d e it in c re a s in g ly p o s sib le to s p r e a d th o s e decisions im m ediately over an ever w ider an d v ariegated space.I m e a n to signal by th a t te rm p ro cesses th a t so re v o lu tio n ize th e o b je ctiv e q u a lititie s o f s p a c e an d tim e th a t w e a rc fo rc e d to a lte r, s o m e tim e s in q u ite ra d ic a l w ays, h o w we re p re s e n t th e w o rld to o u rselv e s.I u s e th e w o rd 'c o m p re s s io n ' b e c a u se a s tro n g c a se ca n b e m a d e th a t th e h is to ry o f capitalism has b een c h a ra cte rized by sp eed -u p in th e pace o f life, w hile so o v erco m in g sp atial b a rrie rs th a t th e w orld so m e tim e s seem s to c o llap se in w ard s u p o n us.... A s sp a c e a p p e a rs to sh rin k to a 'g lo b a l v illa g e ' o f te le c o m m u n ic a tio n s a n d a 's p a c e s h ip e a r t h ' o f e c o n o m ic a n d e c o lo g ic a l in terd ep en d e n cie s -to use ju s t tw o fam iliar an d everyday im ag es -a n d as tim e h o riz o n s s h o rte n to th e point w here th e p resen t is all th e re is (th e w orld o f th e sch izo p h ren ic), so w e have to le a rn how to co p e w ith an overw helm ing sense o f com pression o f o u r spatial an d te m p o ra l w orlds.... T h e ex p e rien ce o f tim e-sp ace co m p ressio n is ch allen g in g , exciting, stressfu l, a n d so m etim e s deeply tro u b lin g , c a p a b le o f s p a rk in g , th e r e f o r e , a d iv e rsity o f .social,c u ltu ra l, a n d p o litic al re s p o n s e s (H arvey, 1990:240).W e n d e rs's IVings o f Desire is obviously one such c reativ e resp o n se to ''tim e-space compression".B audrillard's cultural critique is another.Both enable one to understand and come to terms with a socio-cultural condition that affects us all.M oreover, the film and the critique in question reflect upon each other reciprocally, with mutual enrichment and clarification.3.1 Baudrillard's views on communicationThis article co n cen tra te s mainly on two o f B au d rillard 's essays -"The Im plosion of Meaning in the M edia "(inBaudrillard, 1983)  and "The Ecstasy of Communication" (1985), w hich are p articu la rly su itab le for th e line of arg u m en tatio n .In both th ese essays, Baudrillard delineates the transform ation that communication has undergone in advanced capitalist society.In an earlier e.ssay, in "In the Shadow of the SilentMajorities", (1983:35- 36), he had contended that the m edia function via w hat he calls "fascination" (i.e., in McLuhan's terms, the neutralization of the message in favour o f the medium), in this way underm ining com m unication 'by m eaning' in favour o f an oth er com m unicational mode.H e now show s (1983:95-109) th a t th e in c re a se in th is a lte rn a tiv e m o d e, nam ely information, is matched by a correlative decrease in meaning.In his own words (1983:96): ... in fo rm a tio n is d ire c tly d e s tru c tiv e o f m e a n in g a n d sig n ificatio n , o r n e u tra liz e s it.T h e loss o f m e an in g is d ire ctly linked to th e dissolving an d dissuasive actio n o f in fo rm atio n , th e m ed ia, an d th e m ass m edia.
Baudrillard's words (1983:35): C ritica l th o u g h i judge.san d chooses, it p ro d u c e s diffe re n ces, it is by s ele ctio n th a t it p resid e s over m ean ing.T h e ma.s.ses (the pseudo-social c o u n te rp a rt of th e proccss o f .simulation; B .O .], on th e o th e r h a n d , do n o t ch o o se, th e y do n o t p ro d u c e d iffe re n c e s b u t a lacli o f d iffe re n tia tio n -th ey re ta in a fascination for th e m edium which they p refer to th e critical exigencies o f th e m essage.

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1985:130), terms ... a so rt o f obscenity w h ere th e m ost in tim ate p ro cesses o f o u r life b c c o m e th e v irtu al feed in g g ro u n d o f th e m edia ... Inversely, th e en tire universe com es to unfold arb itrarily o n y o u r d o m e stic screen ...: all this explodes th e scene form erly p reserv ed by th e m inim al s e p a ra tio n o f pu b lic an d p riv ate ...
d y o u fro m o th e rs -o r from th e w orld, w h ere it w as invested as a p ro te ctiv e en c lo s u re , an im ag in a ry p ro te c to r, a d efen c e system .But it also re a p e d th e sym bolic benefits o f alien atio n , which is th a t th e O th e r exists, an d th at o th e rn ess can fool you for th e b e tte r o r th e w orse.T h u s c o n su m e r society lived also u n d e r th e sign o f alienation, as a society o f th e spectacle.B ut ju s t so: as long as th e re is alien atio n , th e re is sp ectacle, action, scene.It is not o b scen ity -th e sp ectacle is n ever obscen e. O b sc en ity b eg in s p recisely w hen th e re is no m o re sp ectacle , no m o re scene, w hen all b cc o m es tr a n sp a re n c e an d im m ed iate visibility, w hen everything is exp o sed to th e harsh and in e x o rab le light o f in fo rm atio n an d co m m u n icatio n .W e are no longer a p a rt o f th e d ram a of alien atio n ; w e live in the ecstasy o f co m m u n icatio n .A n d this ecstacy is o b scen e. T h e ob scen e is w hat docs aw ay w ith every m irro r, every look, ev ery im age.T h e o b scen e puts a n e n d to every re p re se n ta tio n .B u t it is n o t only th e sexual th a t b ec o m es o b scen e in pornography; to d a y th e re is a w hole porn o g rap h y o f in fo rm atio n an d co m m u n icatio n , th a t is to say, o f circuits and n etw o rk s, a p o rn o g ra p h y of all fu n ctio n s an d o b je cts in th e ir read a b ility , th e ir fluidity, th e ir a v a ila b ity , th e ir re g u la tio n , in th e ir fo rc e d sig n ific a tio n , in th e ir p e rf o r m a tiv ity , in th e ir b ra n c h in g , in th e ir p o ly v a le n c e , in th e ir fre e e x p re s s io n ... It is n o lo n g e r th e n th e tra d itio n a l obscenity o f w hat is hidden, rep ressed , forbidden o r o b scu rc; on th e co n trary , it is th e ob scen ity o f th e visible, o f th e all-too-visible, o f th e m ore-visible-than-the-visible.It is th e o b scen ity o f w h at n o lo n g er has any secret, o f w hat dissolves com pletely in in fo rm atio n and com m u n icatio n .
T h e fa c t th a t m a n y an g e ls, a c c o rd in g lo F alk [in th e film ; B .O .],h av e c h o s e n lo c o m e to e a rth , su g g ests th a t it is b e tte r alw ays to b e in sid e th a n o u ts id e th e flow o f h u m a n tim e, th a t b ec o m in g always has th e p o ten tial lo b reak with th e stasis o f being.
Bibliography B a u d rilla rd , J .1985, T h e E c sta sy o f C o m m u n ic a tio n .In: F o s te r , H . T h e A n ti-A e sth e tic : E s s a y s o n Postm odern Culture.P o rt T o w n sen d : Bay P ress, p. 126-134.B au drillard, J. 1983.In the S h a d o w o f the S ilen t M ajorities ... or the E n d o f the Social, a n d O th er Essays, T r.Fos.s, P ., P atto n , P. an d J o h n sto n , J. N ew Y ork : S em io lex t(e), Inc.G illies, F. 1991.H o p in g w ithout R ea so n , Im a g e o r O b jec t, or: H o w to G e t fro m M arx to B au d rilla rd .In: The Provocation o f Baudrillard.E d .A ckbass.H o n g K ong : H o n g K ong U n iv ersity P ress, p. 49-67.H arvey, D , 1990.The C ondition o f P ostm odem ity.O xford : Basil Blackw ell.H u tch e o n , L. 1989.T he Politics o f P ostm odernism .L on d o n : R o u tled g e. J am e so n , F. 1985.P o stm o d e rn ism an d C o n su m e r Society.In: F o ste r, H .: 77ic/In(/-/4ei/A c(/c: E ssa ys on Postm odern Culture.P o rt T ow nsend, W ash in g to n : Bay P ress, p. 111-125.L y o ta rd , J -F .1984.T h e P o s tm o d e r n C o n d itio n : A R e p o rt o n K n o w le d g e .T r .M a s s u m i, B. a n d B ennington, G .M a n c h e s te r: M a n c h e ste r U niversity P ress.N icholls, P. 1991.D iv erg en c es; M o d e rn ism , P o stm o d e rn ism , J a m e so n an d L yo tard .C ritical Quarterly, 33(3).A u tu m n , p. 1-18.