Tom Tykwer is certainly one of the most imaginative and creative film makers in the world today. He wrote and directed this one two years after his famous RUN LOLA RUN (1998) with the same star, the mesmerising Franka Potente. This one is set in his home town of Wuppertal, Germany. Miss Potente, as usual, is very potent indeed, so potent in fact that one is entirely spellbound just watching her to see what she will do next. This film is so unpredictable, so complex, so mysterious, that it might be described as 'Symbolist' (see Paul Valéry's essay 'The Existence of Symbolism' which he wrote in 1936). If I had been told it had a script by Stéphane Mallarmé, I would believe it. All the events are richly-textured, like a fine cheese which has just turned ripe. Who are all these people, and why do they behave as they do? Potente is a nurse at an insane asylum, but late in the story, when an exasperated Benno Fürmann says she is crazy, she answers with her eerie calmness: 'Natürlich' ('Certainly'). In fact, we discover that she has been working in the asylum for years because her father is an inmate there. What she discovers about the true cause of the death of her mother is part of the surprises. She has long since ceased to be part of the real world. She claims to have been born in the asylum, and it is possible that she was. In any case, the film demonstrates that there are degrees of sanity and insanity, and where you draw the line can be subjective. The film consists of one shocking dramatic moment after another, and there are some frenetic running scenes as well, reminiscent of RUN LOLA RUN. Tykwer seems to love people who run. He also likes people who get soaked in the rain, nearly drown in ponds, get unexpectedly socked in the jaw, chew on glass, get strapped in to stop them committing murder because they have been ordered to do so by a voice which is 'ganz oben' ('of the highest'), and who continually encounter as many extreme situations as possible. Early in the film, Potente is knocked over by a bus and Fürmann saves her life by giving her a tracheotomy, grabbing a straw from a blind man, and inserting it into her chest so she can breathe. She then becomes 'imprinted' on him like a baby duck who thinks he is her mama. This leads to her insistently following him around until he accepts the dictates of Fate that they must be together. To say that all the characters in the film are strange would be an understatement. Underlying the action we have themes like the true nature of love, guilt, fear, redemption, salvation, sanity and insanity, and other 'meaning of life' issues. It makes for a heady mix of surrealist philosophy and action as frantic as that of a Dada manifestation. The directing and cinematography are superb. Everything about this film is utterly fascinating. Tom Tykwer must be even more so.
Review of The Princess and the Warrior
