THE PRINCESS AND THE WARRIOR (Der Krieger und die Kaiserin)
Sissi (Franka Potente, "Run Lola Run") is a quiet psychiatric nurse beloved by the long-term patients in her care but lonely in her personal life. Bodo (Benno Furmann) is a troubled man living with his brother Walter (Joachim Krol, "Run Lola Run"). When Bodo's chased through the streets for thievery, he dances through traffic, startling drivers. Sissi, in town with her blind charge Otto (Melchior Beslon), is hit full force by a truck. Bodo saves her with an emergency tracheotomy and disappears, but fate has dealt these two a hand which must be played in writer/director Thomas Tykwer's "The Princess and the Warrior."
Mix together "Run Lola Run" with "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and pull the result out slowly light salt water taffy and you've got "The Princess and the Warrior." Once again, Tykwer examines fate from the height of his extreme overhead shots and his own self-importance. "Run Lola Run" was a fun piece of pop filmmaking, but while "The Princess and the Warrior" contains some beautiful imagery, in the end it covers no new ground.
Once again Tykwer's star Potente holds the screen, but this time she's a blank slate, a sleepwalker who doesn't come to life until she almost dies. She becomes obsessed with Bodo and tracks him down by taking Otto back to the scene of the accident. In a ridiculous scene, Otto (this film's Billy Bibbit) remembers a sound which identifies which direction Bodo came from - two months later. (This type of contrivance makes Tykwer's plot rigging painfully obvious.)
Bodo has been established as an extremely sensitive type (he cries at the funeral of a stranger and loses his job as a gravedigger), but when Sissi finds him in the chalet/shack he lives in with brother Walter, he wants nothing to do with her. Bodo is tortured by the accidental death of his wife and Walter is planning a bank heist so the two can go to Australia to get away from past memories. Sissi, however, persists, returning on a rainy night in a bright yellow slicker that beams an alternative to the kangaroo crossing sign hanging on the brothers' wall. She's still turned away, but it's clear that Tykwer is moving his game pieces for a confrontation midst robbery, where Sissi will be provided a chance to save Bodo.
Tykwer and his Director of Photography Frank Griebe favor shots used in "Run Lola Run" - Potente lying prone with her hair fanned about her, overhead shots which render towns in miniature where so many ants scurry about, dolly shots as characters are propelled down streets and hallways. Tykwer offers up objects as talismans - a seashell, a locket, a button, - to create a mythology around his fantastically titled story. Editor Mathilde Bonnefoy has slowed down the rhythm ("Lola" was an economical 80 min. while "Princess" runs a bloated 135), but the effect often goes over the line from dreamy to somnambular. Tykwer's minimalist score is effective.
Once Bodo (a much stronger costar for Potente than Lola's Manni) enters Sissi's world, the "Cuckoo's Nest" comparisons come more fast and furiously. Sissi's back story is finally filled in before the overtly romantic climax, but once again Tykwer goes overboard - there are just too many accidents (hair dryers in bathtubs, gas station explosions) propelling his central character towards a choice that only happens in movies.
B-
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