"The Princess and the Warrior"
Writer/director Tom Tykwer made quite a splash, internationally, with his surprisingly popular, hyper-kinetic film, "Run Lola Run." Now, he changes gears, but keeps his star, Franka Potente, in the modern fairytale, "The Princess and the Warrior."
Can a filmmaker who made his mark on world cinema with a fast-paced 81-minute action flick - the same story told, with a twist, three times - pull off a two-plus hour movie that bridges romance, bank robbery and a visit to an insane asylum? The answer is: sort of.
Sissi (Potente) is a psychiatric nurse who lives and works in a private hospital. When an old friend asks her to collect an inheritance at a local bank, as a favor, she takes a blind patient in tow and heads into the city, away from the safety of the asylum. Meanwhile, a drifter, Bodo Riemer (Benno Furmann), is being chased by supermarket security guards for shoplifting and hitches a ride on the back of a trailer truck. The driver, distracted by the unwanted hitcher, reacts too late as Sissi walks into his path and is run down.
Not knowing what damage he has caused, Bodo seeks refuge from his pursuers under the truck and, in a burst of heroics, saves Sissi's life with an impromptu tracheotomy. He stays with the injured nurse until medical help can be summoned, then disappears without a trace. Months later, the nearly recovered Sissi begins a search for "the man" who saved her life. When she finally finds him, the sad and angry Bodo wants nothing to do with her. They have another chance encounter when Sissi arrives at the bank to collect her friend's inheritance just when Bodo and his brother Walter (Joachim Krol) are robbing it. Walter gets shot and has to be left behind, but Sissi helps Bodo escape and brings him to her hospital to hide. As she gets to know him, she comes to believe their meeting was not just chance, but destiny.
I have to give Tykwer credit in his single-minded vision of this modern fairytale. It is ambitious in its scope and tries to cover a lot of ground. It's kind of like "Beauty and the Beast" meets "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" with the shy princess searching for her savior, a reluctant hero who has his own share of deep-seated psychological problems. When Sissi gives Bodo asylum in the asylum, she begins a journey of self-discovery that draws her closer to the troubled former soldier. She also learns the truth about his past - a gas station explosion killed his girlfriend and Bodo has never been able to cope with the death.
Throw into this mixture the botched bank robbery and the unexpected death of Bodo's brother and Tykwer takes us on a low-key roller coaster ride that tries hard to cover all of its bases, but, in the end, fragments in too many directions. The extended "Cuckoo's Nest" sequence has characters straight out of Ken Kesey's story. I half expected R.P. McMurphy to show his face and demand to watch the World Series.
The characters are, in Sissi's case, shy and quiet, and Bodo's, sullen and quiet, making this a pretty quiet movie, overall, especially when compared to the raucous "Run Lola Run." Tykwer, with Johnny Kilmek and Reinhold Heil, provide the music score (derivative of the likes of Bernard Herrmann) that keeps tensions building, helping the too-long runtime feel just a bit shorter. The tech aspects of the film are pretty nifty.
Tykwer tries to do too much with "The Princess and the Warrior." Part fairytale, part romance, part self-awakening, part bank heist, there are just too many parts. It's ambitious and obvious that the writer/director sees greatness in himself, but he ain't no Krzysztof Kieslowski, at least not yet. I give it a C+.
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