The Princess And The Warrior

The last time German director Tykwer teamed up with his girlfriend Franka Potente, the result – an astonishing all-out adrenaline rush entitled Run Lola Run – gained international acclaim beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, and established the couple as near-royalty in Der Vaterland.

Their latest collaboration is an altogether more complex and less immediate affair: The Princess and The Warrior is a good 40 minutes longer than Run Lola Run, and conspicuously lacks the manic energy of its predecessor. But while anyone expecting another shotgun-blast of the same intensity from Princess/Warrior will be disappointed. This heartfelt, mature and subtle work stands up extremely well in its own right, and hardly represents a huge loss of form.

Barely recognisable from Lola, Potente plays Sissi – a very laid-back psychiatric nurse, not averse to helping her patients jerk off – whose path is inextricably intertwined with that of gruff, taciturn Bodo (Furmann), who has just left the army and is in extremely low spirits. When Sissi is misfortunate enough to get run over by a truck, Bodo happens on the scene and saves her life with an emergency tracheotomy: the rest of the film traces her determined quest to discover her mysterious saviour, and its increasingly bizarre results.

Furmann and Potente carry the movie with two near-volcanic performances: the latter’s profoundly Germanic features are dwelt on lovingly throughout by the obviously-smitten director, but it stops just short of becoming excessive. The cinematography’s hugely impressive, and The Princess and the Warrior’s only real flaw is a pace which occasionally verges on the ponderous: the finale, for all its drama, seems slightly underwhelming after the wait that’s preceded it.

Highly recommended, all the same.