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Volume 1 ¦ Volume 2 ¦ Volume 3
Saturday, 02 September 2000:
Hey, less than a year until another editorial! ;-)
In this edition:
Intro:
This is my first "open air" editorial cause right now
I'm sitting right at Planten & Blomen (a park in the city centre of Hamburg). Ok, I'll have to
type this text into the computer when I get home, but the moment I'm writing it I'm here. :-) I'm
surrounded by flowers and listening to the soothing sound of what appears to be a mini edition of
a waterfall.
I'm happy, really happy, cause I saw Tom Tykwer's new film today! A big thank you to
Maria Köpf at X-Filme Creative Pool for allowing me to attend the screening! I felt really
uneasy for a moment cause if there was one thing I didn't want it was to be one of those annoying
fans who think they have the right to take liberties just cause they're fans.
Review:
"Forget Lola!" he screamed and everyone surrounding him looked at him slightly annoyed. Ok, don't
forget Lola, but please don't try to think of Tom Tykwer's new
film as anything remotely related to a Run Lola Run II sort of thing. If anything
at all, try to remember the hypnotic slowliness of the pictures in
Wintersleepers to get into the mood for The Princess And the
Warrior.
Sissi (Franka Potente) is working as a nurse in a psychiatry. When
she goes for a walk with one of the patients, she gets hit by a truck and a stranger saves her
life by means of a special kind of First Aid... After she has returned home from the hospital, she
tries to find him again. When she finds him eventually, he (Bodo, Benno
Fürmann) isn't thrilled to see her again, in fact, he chucks her out of his house.
Benno and his brother Walter (Joachim Krôl) plan to rob the bank at which
Walter works to emigrate to Australia, they hope to lead a better life down under than they're
doing now. It's during the bank raid when Bodo's and Sissi's paths cross again, and this time he
begins to really notice her...
Once again, Tykwer's new film is about his favourite topics chance, fate and
probability. He certainly managed to actually make a film that is totally different from
Run Lola Run, which is already a good thing for a start. The film takes
its time, which takes the viewer some time to get used to as well. Also, it takes quite a while
until the reasons and motives of the protagonists are explained, so if you want just
easy-to-follow instant explanations, this film is not for you.
This has also consequences on how you react to what you see: Franka Potente's Sissi is
so different from the down to earth Lola and her other roles that her naivety and occasinal signs
of a disturbed state are almost annoying because you don't know (yet) what made her become that
way. And this fits Benno Fürmann's performance as well: You start to wonder why he is so
hostile and it takes a long time until the reasons for his behaviour are explained.
Frank Griebe's camera work is once again hypnotic and overwhelmingly impressive. The
music is much more minimalistic than the in-yer-face Lola soundtrack,
once you get used to it, it fits the film perfectly.
Just the dialogue appears to be wooden at some points, not only that some sentences
actually sound like they were meant to become a film quote but sometimes they sound overly
melodramatic, for example when Sissi tries to explain to Bodo why she wanted to find him: "I have
to know if it means something that you were there the day we were under that truck [after the
accident]. Or if it was just a coincidence. I want to know whether my life has to change and if
you're the reason for that." Luckily enough, this is just an extreme example.
The Princess... is an impressive and hypnotic film with
beautiful images and a wonderful atmosphere. The cast is also very good, including the supporting
roles (Joachim Krôl, Jürgen Tarrach and especially Lars Rudolph as the most frightening
of the psychiatry's inmates).
That's all for today, folks. :-)
