The Princess and the Warrior

A film set in Wuppertal. Sissi is a nurse in a psychiatric hospital. She grew up inside it; her mother worked there and the woman's whole life takes place in this building. She has nobody outside. One day there is an accident in the street. Sissi is trapped under a lorry and cannot breathe. Someone gets under the vehicle, opens her throat, puts a tube into her windpipe and stays there until help arrives. Then he disappears. When she recovers, Sissi looks for him. The man she finds is Bodo. A former soldier, unemployed, living with his brother and closed in on himself because of a loss. He does not want to remember her. What the film is interested in is not romance but debt: a woman goes after the man who saved her life, and the man meets that attention as a threat. In the second half the narrative moves toward crime and the two characters meet inside the same event. The city is part of the film; Wuppertal's suspended railway and its narrow valley are constantly in the frame. Franka Potente plays Sissi and Benno Fürmann plays Bodo. Joachim Król is in the cast. Tom Tykwer directed, and this is his film after Run Lola Run; his choosing weight over speed was much discussed at the time. Who it is for: anyone who likes German cinema and narratives built on coincidence. Who it is not for: anyone looking for realism; the film moves by the logic of a fairy tale and refuses to explain its coincidences.