The `princess` is Sissi, played by Franka Potente, the star of director Tom Tykwer`s previous success, Run Lola Run. Sissi, a withdrawn, intense young woman, works in the psychiatric ward of a hospital in the city of Wuppertal; the patients adore her, some of them more than they should. Across town the `warrior`, Bodo, Benno Furmann, an ex-soldier, lives in a hilltop shack with his brother and has various jobs, including one in a funeral home, which provides a tenuous link to Sissi. The paths of these two lonely people finally cross in the most frighteningly dramatic way....Tom Tykwer is one of those directors hooked on the medium itself. He has an exceptional vision, and a completely confident way of using every element of cinema. His widescreen camerawork is dazzling, the staging of key scenes, like the truck accident which brings the lovers together or the bank robbery, is quite brilliant, and he`s a real romantic. He also uses music, which he partly composes himself, really well. The Princess And The Warrior isn`t quite in the same class as Run Lola Run; it`s too long for one thing. But it`s bursting with ideas, it`s exciting and sexy and funny and visionary, and I had a great time with it.
Share
