Fate on film

>> Tom Tykwer shifts gears with The Princess and the Warrior

by MATTHEW HAYS

When über-auteur Wim Wenders was visiting Montreal to present The Buena Vista Social Club, I was blunt with him about the state of German cinema. The same once-vibrant culture that brought us Fassbinder--easily one of the greatest filmmakers who's ever lived--was now mired in third-rate, shlocky, lite comedies.

Wenders defended recent German cinema with one name: Tom Tykwer. Not exactly faint praise, coming from a man with Wenders' reputation. At that point, Tykwer was riding a massive wave of success with his third feature, the frenetic and daring Run Lola Run. That film didn't stop; it was an ongoing onslaught on our senses, a film that offered three very different possible realities about how the day of a botched heist could end up. As well as bolstering Tykwer's profile, the film jettisoned its star, Franka Potente, into the limelight as the latest It Girl.

The two are back with the unusually paced The Princess and the Warrior. Those who know Tykwer's oeuvre won't be too surprised at the shift in gears (witness his first feature, Deadly Maria, an almost plotless film which featured a woman who collected insects) but those who know him only by Run Lola Run might be taken aback. In Princess, Potente plays a woman who works in an insane asylum who's struck by a car; unable to breathe, a crook (Benno Fürman) who's fleeing the law, saves her life by emergency tracheotomy. On the lam, he promptly disappears; while recovering, she becomes consumed with finding the man who saved her life, feeling an inextricable bond with him. Her mission becomes clear: to track down and connect with the hardened criminal who saved her hide.

Philosophical flicks

As different as it all is from Lola, there is a clear link between the films: the pondering of fate. "I can see that," Tykwer says, enjoying the warm glow of adulation that he received at last year's Toronto International Film Fest. "But it's not like I sit down and think about another story surrounding fate. It's not like I have this ideological or philosophical viewpoint I feel I have to get into the movie. I am inspired by certain theological or philisophical questions, and they just end up in the movie."

Tykwer says fate is just a fun thing to play with on film. "Fate and coincidence are very cinematic. Chain reactions in people's lives, connections between people, transitions--these things can be captured very well in film." But he also adds he doesn't believe in fate: "I don't believe we're victims of fate. I do know that chance and coincidence are everywhere, though."

Interestingly enough, Tykwer says he feels less bound by plot twists than atmosphere in general. "Films that have always attracted me have been those that make you feel you're in a different world. Yes, there are films that are good because they're about something interesting or a good idea. But films that thrill me are those that create a certain atmosphere that makes you want to stay in that world. It's like children who want to enter a world of fairy tales. This is one of our basic experiences.

"If you look at Ingmar Bergman, he was so great because he could put all his analytical knowledge and psychological depth into a framework that is like a dream. You feel like you're entering a world that is offering you a lot of information but is also another planet. The biggest point for me when writing The Princess and the Warrior was the beginning scene, where they end up on top of each other because of this accident. Most films end with people on top of each other. My film begins with them on top of one another, then they have to get to know each other throughout the rest of the film.

"My favourite films are the ones that become experiences. They become an experience like meeting someone you're really taken with, someone you want to meet up with again. You want more of them."