Der Krieger und Die Kaiserin

Der Krieger und Die Kaiserin
Tom Tykwer, 2000.
Franka Potente, Benno Fürmann, Joachim Krol
135 mins, M15+ (disturbing images and some language)

Irgendwo da draußen wartet die Liebe...

In the lyrics of Believe, which featured in Tom Tykwer's 1998 killer of a movie, Lola Rennt, it says, "I don't believe in promise, I don't believe in chance, I don't believe you can resist the things that make no sense... I don't believe there's destiny, but someone to accuse...' However, chance, coincidence, fate and destiny are themes that seem to play heavily in Tykwer's work, pushing plots far deeper than the simple relationships that they are laid out on.
Der Krieger und Die Kaiserin, which translates to The Warrior and The Empress (although it's called The Princess and The Warrior under English release), covers fate, destiny and chance, as did Lola Rennt, and tells a strangely uplifting existential tale that is both poetic and heartbreaking, achieving a level of humanity and tenderness that very few films will ever reach.
The story is beautifully told in few words, and is visually stunning and aurally perfect. A soundtrack more suited to every moment of the film could not be found, and it helps to add to the intense connection you feel to the film.
All things considered, the premise is deceptively simple - people meeting, perhaps thrown together by fate and a lot of persistence. But this film is about a meeting of souls, not some Hollywood throwing together of people who want to tear off each other's clothes and go at it like wild animals. The characters of Sissi (Potente) and Bodo (Fürmann) are opposites who are fated to attract, even though they are so wildly different.
There are connections between the two throughout the movie that we do not even realise are there until we stumble across the information later in the film - it's like a jigsaw puzzle that we didn't even know existed is taking shape before our eyes - which shows the way that fate has had a hand in it all.
Only by accident - or was it fate?- is Sissi pulled from the psychiatric hospital she works at to go to the bank to settle some business for a friend who has moved to the coast recently after the death of her mother (a letter from her starts the whole movie). On the way to the bank, Sissi is involved in an accident - she is hit by a tanker. She finds herself under the tanker in silence, unable to breathe, until a mysterious stranger (Bodo) comes to the rescue and helps her to breathe again by performing an emergency tracheotomy on her (definitely the most stomach-frightening scene I have ever seen in a movie).
The irony of it all is that Bodo is the one who caused the accident. Or... was it fate that made that all happen?
All Sissi manages to keep of him is a button that comes off of the sleeve of his shirt, and for the 53 days that she's in hospital, thinks of him. She has begun to breathe in life, too... and realises the suffocation that had slowly been happening at the asylum.
Her escape? Finding the man who saved her - there must be a reason to if, destiny, fate, chance? So she begins on her quest to find her saviour, not just because she's greatful, but because of the reasons behind it all. Actually, it's not just Sissi who needs to escape. What are we escaping from? Well, we may not realise that we want to escape, we may be clinging to what prevents us from doing it. Bodo clings to the day his wife immolated herself at a petrol station. Sissi is held by the patients in the psychiatric ward she works at, a place that's shut off from the world where she exists as the darling of the inmates who she cares about as individuals. After all, her father is one of them, it seems. The past holds Bodo and an interminable present keeps Sissi in stasis.
Finding the mysterious man who saved her life is easy enough - it's actually connecting with him that's the hard part. Bodo isn't interested in this, but it is Sissi's tenacity that forges a deeper connection, and it is ultimately the day in the bank that brings them together. She helps and protects him and shelters him when things all go terribly wrong.
Sissi saves Bodo after he had saved her. She saves him emotionally, bringing him back to life. Only together do they truly live - apart from each other, they exist, searching for something, living relatively blank lives with nothingness stretching into the distance. They both need each other to realise something more in life. Of course, they could exist separately in a way that seemed like they were doing perfectly well, but they wouldn't be alive in the truest sense.
This is a film of great beauty, visually and intellectually. It's langorous, liquid, filmed with great attention to detail, with gorgeous colours and clever camera work. There are some parts that are hard to watch, such as the tracheotomy, but they are handled exquisitly and add to the disturbing yet intensely satisfying feel of this movie.
As a viewer, you feel the quiet despair, the loss, the hollowness of an existence in stasis, the love that is tentatively felt, the silence, the greater workings of fate and destiny that remind us that even when things are bad, life is still worth living because you never know what you may find out there.
After all, as the tag line from the title says, irgendwo da draußen wartet die Liebe...