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flick pick | The Princess and  the Warrior 2000 Directed + written by: Tom Tykwer Starring: Franka Potente, Benno Fürmann, Joachim Król Language: German [with English subtitles] Look for it at the video store under: drama, foreign [Germany] Watch it when you’re in the mood for something: artsy-fartsy, lovey  The critic says: ½/ 5 the rating system explained Fun factor: /5

Plot synopsis Sissi is a nurse in the mental institution that’s both her workplace and her home – she has a small apartment there – and is beloved by the patients for whom she cares. One day, while out in town with one of her favorite patients, a truck driver comes barreling down the street and is momentarily distracted from keeping his eyes on the road just as Sissi and her companion are about to cross. Sissi manages to push the patient out of harm’s way, but the truck strikes her. This is how Sissi finds herself pinned under the truck, unable to move. It’s so quiet, she thinks – then realizes it’s because she can’t hear her breath. Meanwhile, a sad handsome stranger named Bodo, who’s on the run from two angry men, ducks under the same truck to hide from his pursuers. He notices Sissi lying there and realizes she’s in trouble. Wait, he tells her, then slides out from under the truck again. He returns, as promised, with a straw in hand; quickly, he cuts a small slit in her throat and pushes in the straw. The emergency tracheotomy saves Sissi from death, but it’s meeting the stranger that changes her life. After months spent recovering in the hospital, Sissi still can’t get him out of her mind, and so she sets out to find him.

Review Too often, a director stumbles upon the perfect recipe for a hip, clever, successful movie and ends up recycling the same formula over and over again until the audience finally screams enough, and the director’s career goes kaput. Tykwer’s previous film, the wonderfully kinetic Run Lola Run, was so distinctively quirky and stylish, and so universally loved (it’s the rare foreign flick that even non art-house-movie-lovers seem to have seen and adored), that you could easily have imagined its director sticking with the tried and true. Instead, Tykwer followed up his hit with The Princess and the Warrior, which is every bit as slow-moving and still as Lola is heart-pumping frenetic. Don’t get me wrong: it’s never boring to watch, thanks in large part to the gorgeous cinematography and star Franka Potente’s imperfectly beautiful face – which has the curious ability to seem open/vulnerable and a little reserved all at the same time (something about the expressive eyes combined with the strong set of her jaw – there’s a hint of the strong emotions lurking within, but you get the sense she’s trying hard to keep it contained). But while Lola seemed tailor-made for the short-attention-spanned, MTV generation, Princess requires patience: it’s like an underwater dream, where everything seems to float by in slow motion, and you’re waiting, waiting, holding your breath just like Sissi is, hoping for something to happen. Things do happen, little quirks of fate and surprising connections that keep putting Sissi and Bodo in the same place at the same time. What’s lovely and reaffirming about Tykwer’s version of fate is that all the tiny coincidences, the small miracles of chance, only serve to present opportunities. In the end, the message seems to be, it’s the little conscious decisions we choose to make that actually determine our paths. —reviewed by Y. Sun

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