Ein himmlischer Freund (2003)

Johannes is an angel from northern Germany who becomes too heavy from gluttony, falls out of a fresco in the main church of St. Michaelis, and lands with his trumpet on the stone floor of a mountain chapel in Tyrol. He will get his wings back only if he performs a good deed by Christmas Eve. However, there are only four days left until then. Finding no one in the remote mountain chapel, he encounters a man about to jump from a bridge, whom he tries to save from what he believes will be a fatal fall. But the man is a bungee jumper. At the Christmas market, Johannes plays his trumpet, but two police officers chase him away because, in their opinion, he is using the music as a pretext to take money from old people. The hungry Johannes is thrown out of an inn’s kitchen and onto the street by the innkeeper. During a snowstorm, Dr. Gabriela Kaiser finds Johannes on the street, takes him home, gives him something to eat, and offers him a place to sleep for the night. That night, the angel meets Julian, Gabriela’s eleven-year-old son, who uses a wheelchair. The next day, Julian asks his mother to bring Johannes back and let him live with them. Gabriela sets out to find him and brings the angel back. Julian and Johannes arrange to get a Christmas tree, with Julian collecting money from listeners in exchange for Johannes’s trumpet playing. Johannes learns from Gabriela that they have not had a Christmas tree since the Advent season a few years earlier, when Julian’s father died in a car accident. Julian was uninjured in the accident, but blames himself for his father’s death because he briefly distracted him. Although medically healthy, Julian has been in a wheelchair ever since. He no longer has contact with his former schoolmates and is taught at home by a private tutor. Johannes tries to encourage Julian to try walking. On the front page of the Tiroler Tageszeitung, Gabriela sees a photo of Johannes under the headline: “He thinks he’s an angel. Patient escapes from psychiatric hospital.” According to the newspaper report, this is his 23rd escape. Johannes tells Julian his story, especially that he has to get Julian walking again by Christmas Eve in order to get his wings back. Gabriela and Julian witness Johannes being taken to the state psychiatric hospital, which is run by Professor Schönborn. Julian asks his mother to get Johannes out of the hospital. Gabriela visits Professor Schönborn. According to Schönborn, there is no Johannes Engel there, only the schizophrenic patient Johannes Berger, who thinks he is an angel. Gabriela does not think this is particularly bad, because he gives the world hope. Schönborn, on the other hand, believes he must protect the world from Johannes because his hopes are false; perhaps Johannes has already infected Gabriela. Gabriela replies that if Johannes is crazy and Schönborn is normal, then she would rather be crazy. On Christmas Eve, Johannes escapes from the state psychiatric hospital. Julian takes a few steps, allowing Johannes to get his wings back, and Johannes returns to his place in the fresco.