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MOVIE CRITIQUE:
Here is another intelligent, wildly inventive, and superbly acted movie for this summer, 2001.
The premise of this movie is twofold. The first is about what is the meaning of a chance intersection of two lives, a
meeting wherein one stranger miraculously saves the life of the other? Is that all there is to their "relationship",
the gift of life provided without love, without friendship, without even knowledge as to who the other person is and whether
or not she is even worthy of that gift? One of them, the recipient of this most gracious gift, is left asking for more out
of this chance meeting with her "warrior", her potential knight in shining armor.
The second premise is that with her life now saved, can she possibly go on as before, or does this gift require a dramatic
change in her daily lifestyle, her career, even her reasons for living? The "Princess" in this movie quickly comes
to the realization that her old life is now over.
The "Princess" is Sissi, played to perfection by Franka Potente, as a nurse working in an asylum for the insane
in a small town in Germany. Franka Potente also starred in an earlier movie, "Run, Lola, Run", directed by this
movie's director, Tom Tykwer. It is clear from these two wonderful movies that she is his muse and he is her genius for she
is absolutely breathtaking in both of these movies. Potente is not a pretty woman. One might even call her plain, but she
becomes magical in front of the camera.
Her little nuances of acting are all exquisite. She reminds me a little bit of Morgan Freeman and the comment I made about
him in "Along Came a Spider" where I said he acts more with his eyes that most actors do with their entire bodies.
Franka Potente is very much like this as her facial expressions are just done to perfection in conveying the messages of her
inner emotional being. She really does deserve an Oscar nomination for her work in this movie.
Roger Ebert also loved this movie while his partner, Richard Roeper, gave it "Thumbs down" as being too pretentious.
I side with Ebert in this argument, although Roeper does have a point, albeit a small one. "The Princess and the Warrior"
is two hours and ten minutes long. Tom Tykwer obviously loved his story and/or his subject as the movie could easily have
been shortened by about 20 minutes. Were it not for the length, I would have easily given four stars to this new cinema classic.
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MOVIE SYNOPSIS:
The movie opens with a young woman writing a letter at her remote home perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the
majestic North Sea. The view is breathtaking and we wonder to whom the letter is being sent as she walks into town to mail
it. The letter arrives at the asylum and it is for Sissi.
This friend (cousin?) of hers asks Sissi to go to a local bank and retrieve the contents of a safety deposit box as an
older woman living in Wuppertal has recently passed away and has left its contents to her.
Sissi is a longtime resident nurse of a charitable asylum for the insane and deeply disturbed residents of Wuppertal,
Germany. We later learn that she was born at the asylum as both of her parents also lived there. Sissi is very devoted to
her patients and they are all equally devoted to her as well as their being very dependent on her. Perhaps too dependent on
her as she sometimes crosses that professional line separating a nurse from her patients.
It is clear that she doesn't have much of a life, if any at all, outside the asylum doors.
On the day that she has chosen to go to this bank for her friend, she decides to bring a blind patient with her on her
trip as getting out in the fresh air is encouraged for all the patients of this asylum. While on the way to the bank she finds
herself momentarily distracted by her patient and, tragically, is struck by a truck barreling down the street.
Fateful moments pass as she feels her life ebbing away while lying underneath that truck barely conscious of the people
milling around nearby, but nobody doing much of anything. Suddenly a young man rolls underneath the truck and, astonishingly,
performs a tracheotomy on her with his knife. He even insets a straw in her severed throat and blows precious air into her
oxygen-starved lungs.
The shock of seeing this dramatic scene played out close-up on the screen is so powerful that we ourselves feel like poor
Sissi lying there. Her thoughts become our thoughts and the empathy is powerful and overwhelming. This scene will surely remain
with you as one of the most powerful moments ever put on film. Being the recipient of a tracheotomy myself, this was truly
a dramatic moment at the cinema for me.
The ambulance arrives to carry Sissi and her unknown benefactor to the hospital, she all the while clutching desperately
to his arm. As he cannot accompany her into the operating room, she is forced to relinquish hold of his arm with only the
small token of a button from his sleeve held fast within her clenched fist.
Fifty-three days later the nurse Sissi, now also a patient herself, returns to the ward to the enthusiastic greetings
of her patients. But she is not the same Sissi as of old. The new Sissi is consumed with curiosity as to the identity of this
unknown warrior who so valiantly saved her life and nothing else in her life matches this search of hers for importance. For
a while she thinks that his shirt sleeve button is her only clue as to his identity, but then she remembers that her blind
patient was with her and perhaps he might be able to recall something about that fateful day that may be more useful than
a simple button.
Her supposition proves correct as, during a reenactment of the tragedy, her blind patient, whose other senses are much
more fully developed to compensate for his loss of vision, recalls a door opening in the direction of a nearby store. The
store owner grudgingly admits to knowing the young man after considerable badgering by Sissi and she quickly sets off across
town in the elevated to his suburban home.
Bodo (Benno Furmann) and his brother, Walter (Joachim Krol), live together in a small, shabby hilltop home overlooking
Wuppertal. Sissi, expecting a cordial greeting from them and some recognition of her on Bodo's part, is shocked when he disclaims
any interest in meeting her now that she is well and Walter backs his brother up on this assertion. Both brothers, in effect,
tell her to "Get lost!"
Crushed and hurt, she quietly goes home. Days later, unable to live with the dichotomy of his lack of sociability versus
the memory of his saving her life, she once again crosses town and walks up the steep hill to their home. Walter is home alone
drinking and reluctantly invites her in for a shot of tequila while waiting for Bodo to return. (Don't miss Sissi's facial
expressions as she downs this shot of tequila! It's classic!) He informs her that Bodo has recently lost his wife in an explosion
at a gas station and he partly blames himself for this tragedy.
So Sissi has another potential patient on her hands, only this one is very unwilling to commit himself into her care.
Bodo returns and again chases her out of the house. Some short time later she tries again for the third time to ingratiate
herself into his affections and once again she is spurned by her fantasy warrior. This is one patient who makes it painfully
obvious that he is not at all devoted to his nurse/fellow patient.
Bodo, it turns out, has taken a self-destructive and an antisocial turn for the worse as he blames himself for the death
of his wife. Furthermore, he now blames all gas stations for what happened to his wife and supports himself by periodically
robbing them.
He was, in fact, fleeing from the police after a robbery of another gas station when he hit upon the ingenious solution
of hiding under the truck that had just hit Sissi. His act of supreme generosity was, as it turns out, a ruse to hide from
the law. The ambulance conveying Sissi to the hospital also conveniently ferreted him away from the scene of the crime.
His brother, Walter, in another coincidence piled upon all the earlier coincidences, also happens to be a security guard
at the very same bank that holds that safety deposit box that Sissi has yet to get to. He and his brother, Bodo, are making
plans to rob the incoming security guards of their cash deposits at that bank. What are the chances that Sissi will be there
as they attempt their heist?
With this wonderful, intelligent, beautifully filmed movie you can be sure that Sissi's life will once again intersect
with that of Bodo's and maybe, just maybe, she might have a chance to repay that gift of life that he gave her.
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