The Princess and the Warrior
Encyclopedia
The Princess and the Warrior is a 2000
German
drama
film written and directed by Tom Tykwer
with Franka Potente
, star of his previous movie Run Lola Run
(Lola rennt), in a leading role. It follows the life of Sissi, a psychiatric hospital
nurse and Bodo (Benno Fürmann
), an anguished former soldier who lapses into criminality, but allows other characters (such as Bodo's brother Walter and select patients from the hospital) equal time for development. We see how Sissi's routine life is skewed by a near-death experience and her subsequent relationship with Bodo.
, places great emphasis on fate
and personal decisions, as well as the importance of escape. It is centered around four central events: the accident that first brings Bodo and Sissi together, the bank robbery, the roof scene, and the final resolution. Most of the story takes place in Wuppertal
, Germany
. The characters take late-night trips on the spectral overhead trains of the Schwebebahn Wuppertal
.
The film begins with a letter to Sissi, a nurse in a psychiatric hospital, asking her for help in wrapping up the affairs of a friend's dead mother. Sissi cares for her patients to the effect that they appear to be her extended family (in fact, she states that her own father is a patient in the hospital). As such, she has little experience of life outside the hospital. Meanwhile, Bodo, living with his brother, applies for a funerary job but is quickly dismissed because of his inability to control his emotions. He later robs a grocery store and during the ensuing chase indirectly causes a truck to hit Sissi. Taking cover from the police
underneath the truck, Bodo finds Sissi, who cannot speak or breathe. In order to save her life, he performs an emergency tracheotomy
. Once Sissi is in medical care, they are separated without Sissi ever learning his name.
The circumstances of her accident prevent Sissi from re-adjusting to her mundane life at the hospital, as she obsesses about tracking down her saviour. One of her patient friends, who had accompanied her on the day of her accident, helps her do so. She manages to track down Bodo, who is not interested in maintaining contact with her or any other woman. We see several times how Bodo, in a semi-conscious state, embraces a hot stove, having to be restrained by his brother Walter. It later becomes clear that Bodo is hallucinating (or perhaps dreaming
) about his deceased wife, having never fully recovered from her death. Walter tells Sissi that Bodo's wife was killed in an explosion at a filling station
, while Bodo was in the washroom
. After Walter finishes his explanation, Bodo arrives and throws Sissi out.
Walter, employed as a security guard at a local bank, involves Bodo in a planned robbery (in preparation for their impending move to Australia
together). As they are overpowering the money couriers in the vault, Sissi visits the bank, following the instructions of the letter she received from her friend (concerning the estate of the friend's mother). As she enters, she notices that Walter is employed at the bank. The alarm is tripped by one of the couriers and Walter is shot when a security guard comes to investigate. Without thinking about it, Sissi prevents the guard from shooting the brothers and helps them escape. They deliver Walter to an emergency room, where his last words to his brother are "get off the toilet, Bodo" (referring to Bodo's inability to move on after his wife's death, seeing himself stuck in the gas station's restroom). Sissi hides Bodo at the institution, where he suffers a violent breakdown
upon learning of his brother's death on TV. This incident brings Bodo to the attention of the head doctor at the institution, and he is treated and kept as a patient. It is during this period that Bodo explains to Sissi the true nature of his wife's death; a flashback shows Bodo and his wife engaged in a serious argument at the filling station. After heading to the washroom
, Bodo witnesses his wife engulfed in a huge explosion caused by her deliberate dropping of a cigarette into a pool of gasoline
.
Sissi makes the decision to leave and asks Bodo to come with her, telling him of her dream in which they were "brother and sister, father and mother, husband and wife". Meanwhile, Steini, one of the patients, who recognized Bodo's identity and is jealous of him spending time with Sissi, calls the police and in a delusion tries to kill Bodo by electrocution (by throwing a toaster into Bodo's bathtub). The delusion, really a flashback
, reveals that Steini had killed Sissi's mother the same way. Bodo however catches the toaster out of the air before it can fall into the tub and chases Steini into the attic. Meanwhile, the police arrive, and Sissi realizes that her mother was in fact murdered and did not commit suicide. She follows Steini to the roof, who offers to jump to atone for his actions. She declines, saying "You're not going to jump anyway", grabs Bodo's hand, and together they jump from the roof of the building, into a small pond.
The final scene (taking place at the scene of Bodo's wife's accident) strays into a bit of surrealism
: Bodo's past personality, unkempt and finally emerging from the gas station restroom, takes a seat behind the wheel, while the real Bodo gets in the back of the car. As they drive off, Sissi touches (old) Bodo's face to wipe away his tears, but he stops her and does so himself, pushing her away yet again. This visibly stirs (real) Bodo, who leans forward and covers his former self's eyes, forcing him to brake. "Real" Bodo tells "old" Bodo to get out and leaves him standing in the middle of the road thus symbolically taking over "old" Bodo's life; perhaps a visual metaphor for beginning anew.
In the international version of the movie, a small scene commences with the abandoned "old" Bodo as a more resolved ending to this surrealistic character and moment. Turning, he notices a sign indicating a bus stop in the field off the road; he waits by it, and an empty bus, driven by Walter, soon arrives to pick up this "dead" version of Bodo. The brothers do not speak, and they drive off a short distance before disappearing.
The film ends with Bodo's redemption through his acceptance of Sissi, as he is shown at last content and dry-eyed as the couple arrive at the friend's seaside house on the edge of a cliff (the friend from the beginning of the movie).
2000 in film
The year 2000 in film involved some significant events.The top grosser worldwide was Mission: Impossible II. Domestically in North America, Gladiator won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor ....
German
Cinema of Germany
Cinema in Germany can be traced back to the late 19th century. German cinema has made major technical and artistic contributions to film.Unlike any other national cinemas, which developed in the context of relatively continuous and stable political systems, Germany witnesses major changes to its...
drama
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
film written and directed by Tom Tykwer
Tom Tykwer
Tom Tykwer is a German film director, screenwriter, and composer. He is best known internationally for directing Run Lola Run , Heaven , Perfume: The Story of a Murderer , and The International ....
with Franka Potente
Franka Potente
Franka Potente is a German film actress and singer. She first appeared in the comedy After Five in the Forest Primeval and gained critical recognition in the action thriller Lola rennt . Potente received Germany's highest film and television awards for her performances in Run Lola Run and...
, star of his previous movie Run Lola Run
Run Lola Run
Run Lola Run is a 1998 German crime thriller film written and directed by Tom Tykwer and starring Franka Potente as Lola and Moritz Bleibtreu as Manni. The story follows a woman who needs to obtain 100,000 German marks in 20 minutes to save her boyfriend's life...
(Lola rennt), in a leading role. It follows the life of Sissi, a psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
nurse and Bodo (Benno Fürmann
Benno Fürmann
Benjamin "Benno" Fürmann is a German film and television actor.-Life and work:Fürmann was born in Berlin-Kreuzberg. By the age of 15 he had lost both his parents. At 17, he had a serious accident while train surfing, and had to spend six weeks in the hospital as a result...
), an anguished former soldier who lapses into criminality, but allows other characters (such as Bodo's brother Walter and select patients from the hospital) equal time for development. We see how Sissi's routine life is skewed by a near-death experience and her subsequent relationship with Bodo.
Plot
The film, like Run Lola RunRun Lola Run
Run Lola Run is a 1998 German crime thriller film written and directed by Tom Tykwer and starring Franka Potente as Lola and Moritz Bleibtreu as Manni. The story follows a woman who needs to obtain 100,000 German marks in 20 minutes to save her boyfriend's life...
, places great emphasis on fate
Destiny
Destiny or fate refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual...
and personal decisions, as well as the importance of escape. It is centered around four central events: the accident that first brings Bodo and Sissi together, the bank robbery, the roof scene, and the final resolution. Most of the story takes place in Wuppertal
Wuppertal
Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in and around the Wupper river valley, and is situated east of the city of Düsseldorf and south of the Ruhr area. With a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. The characters take late-night trips on the spectral overhead trains of the Schwebebahn Wuppertal
Schwebebahn Wuppertal
- Current modernisation :The Wuppertal Schwebebahn nowadays carries up to 82,000 passengers a day through the city. Since 1997, the supporting frame has been largely modernised, and a lot of stations have been reconstructed and brought technically up to date...
.
The film begins with a letter to Sissi, a nurse in a psychiatric hospital, asking her for help in wrapping up the affairs of a friend's dead mother. Sissi cares for her patients to the effect that they appear to be her extended family (in fact, she states that her own father is a patient in the hospital). As such, she has little experience of life outside the hospital. Meanwhile, Bodo, living with his brother, applies for a funerary job but is quickly dismissed because of his inability to control his emotions. He later robs a grocery store and during the ensuing chase indirectly causes a truck to hit Sissi. Taking cover from the police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
underneath the truck, Bodo finds Sissi, who cannot speak or breathe. In order to save her life, he performs an emergency tracheotomy
Tracheotomy
Among the oldest described surgical procedures, tracheotomy consists of making an incision on the anterior aspect of the neck and opening a direct airway through an incision in the trachea...
. Once Sissi is in medical care, they are separated without Sissi ever learning his name.
The circumstances of her accident prevent Sissi from re-adjusting to her mundane life at the hospital, as she obsesses about tracking down her saviour. One of her patient friends, who had accompanied her on the day of her accident, helps her do so. She manages to track down Bodo, who is not interested in maintaining contact with her or any other woman. We see several times how Bodo, in a semi-conscious state, embraces a hot stove, having to be restrained by his brother Walter. It later becomes clear that Bodo is hallucinating (or perhaps dreaming
Dream
Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...
) about his deceased wife, having never fully recovered from her death. Walter tells Sissi that Bodo's wife was killed in an explosion at a filling station
Filling station
A filling station, also known as a fueling station, garage, gasbar , gas station , petrol bunk , petrol pump , petrol garage, petrol kiosk , petrol station "'servo"' in Australia or service station, is a facility which sells fuel and lubricants...
, while Bodo was in the washroom
Washroom
A public toilet is a room or small building containing one or more toilets and possibly also urinals which is available for use by the general public, or in a broader meaning of "public", by customers of other...
. After Walter finishes his explanation, Bodo arrives and throws Sissi out.
Walter, employed as a security guard at a local bank, involves Bodo in a planned robbery (in preparation for their impending move to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
together). As they are overpowering the money couriers in the vault, Sissi visits the bank, following the instructions of the letter she received from her friend (concerning the estate of the friend's mother). As she enters, she notices that Walter is employed at the bank. The alarm is tripped by one of the couriers and Walter is shot when a security guard comes to investigate. Without thinking about it, Sissi prevents the guard from shooting the brothers and helps them escape. They deliver Walter to an emergency room, where his last words to his brother are "get off the toilet, Bodo" (referring to Bodo's inability to move on after his wife's death, seeing himself stuck in the gas station's restroom). Sissi hides Bodo at the institution, where he suffers a violent breakdown
Brief reactive psychosis
Brief reactive psychosis - referred to in the DSM IV-TR as "brief psychotic disorder with marked stressor" - is the psychiatric term for psychosis which can be triggered by an extremely stressful event in the life of a patient....
upon learning of his brother's death on TV. This incident brings Bodo to the attention of the head doctor at the institution, and he is treated and kept as a patient. It is during this period that Bodo explains to Sissi the true nature of his wife's death; a flashback shows Bodo and his wife engaged in a serious argument at the filling station. After heading to the washroom
Washroom
A public toilet is a room or small building containing one or more toilets and possibly also urinals which is available for use by the general public, or in a broader meaning of "public", by customers of other...
, Bodo witnesses his wife engulfed in a huge explosion caused by her deliberate dropping of a cigarette into a pool of gasoline
Gasoline
Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...
.
Sissi makes the decision to leave and asks Bodo to come with her, telling him of her dream in which they were "brother and sister, father and mother, husband and wife". Meanwhile, Steini, one of the patients, who recognized Bodo's identity and is jealous of him spending time with Sissi, calls the police and in a delusion tries to kill Bodo by electrocution (by throwing a toaster into Bodo's bathtub). The delusion, really a flashback
Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder
Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder is a disorder characterized by a continual presence of visual disturbances that are reminiscent of those generated by the ingestion of hallucinogenic substances. Previous use of hallucinogens by the person is needed, though not sufficient, for...
, reveals that Steini had killed Sissi's mother the same way. Bodo however catches the toaster out of the air before it can fall into the tub and chases Steini into the attic. Meanwhile, the police arrive, and Sissi realizes that her mother was in fact murdered and did not commit suicide. She follows Steini to the roof, who offers to jump to atone for his actions. She declines, saying "You're not going to jump anyway", grabs Bodo's hand, and together they jump from the roof of the building, into a small pond.
The final scene (taking place at the scene of Bodo's wife's accident) strays into a bit of surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
: Bodo's past personality, unkempt and finally emerging from the gas station restroom, takes a seat behind the wheel, while the real Bodo gets in the back of the car. As they drive off, Sissi touches (old) Bodo's face to wipe away his tears, but he stops her and does so himself, pushing her away yet again. This visibly stirs (real) Bodo, who leans forward and covers his former self's eyes, forcing him to brake. "Real" Bodo tells "old" Bodo to get out and leaves him standing in the middle of the road thus symbolically taking over "old" Bodo's life; perhaps a visual metaphor for beginning anew.
In the international version of the movie, a small scene commences with the abandoned "old" Bodo as a more resolved ending to this surrealistic character and moment. Turning, he notices a sign indicating a bus stop in the field off the road; he waits by it, and an empty bus, driven by Walter, soon arrives to pick up this "dead" version of Bodo. The brothers do not speak, and they drive off a short distance before disappearing.
The film ends with Bodo's redemption through his acceptance of Sissi, as he is shown at last content and dry-eyed as the couple arrive at the friend's seaside house on the edge of a cliff (the friend from the beginning of the movie).
Cast
- Franka PotenteFranka PotenteFranka Potente is a German film actress and singer. She first appeared in the comedy After Five in the Forest Primeval and gained critical recognition in the action thriller Lola rennt . Potente received Germany's highest film and television awards for her performances in Run Lola Run and...
as Simone, "Sissi" - Benno FürmannBenno FürmannBenjamin "Benno" Fürmann is a German film and television actor.-Life and work:Fürmann was born in Berlin-Kreuzberg. By the age of 15 he had lost both his parents. At 17, he had a serious accident while train surfing, and had to spend six weeks in the hospital as a result...
as Bodo - Joachim KrólJoachim KrólJoachim Król is a German actor, known for his appearances in the films Run Lola Run, Maybe, Maybe Not and Anne Frank: The Whole Story.-Life and work:...
as Walter - Lars Rudolph as Steini
- Melchior Beslon as Otto
- Ludger PistorLudger PistorLudger Pistor is a German actor.Pistor was born in Herten. He has had roles in numerous German-language and English-language films including the Academy Award-winning Schindler's List...
as Werner - Natja BrunckhorstNatja BrunckhorstNatja Brunckhorst is a German film actress.She is mostly known for her role as Christiane F. in the drama Christiane F. - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo....
as Meike