At first, this comes across easily enough as a companion piece to Tykwer's
The Princess and the Warrior from 2000, the similarities obvious as a pair of star-crossed lovers strive to get away from a system that would seek to imprison them, and a hint of crossover into unreality hovering just out of sight. But with the knowledge that the director just picked up Kieslowski's last ever script, a different interpretation forces itself onto the film. You start looking for the late Polish auteur's moral outrage, steeped in black humour or bleak pathos. This is to do Tykwer an injustice, however: he's capable of more changes of pace than just breakneck, and brings his own slant to the story without steamrollering.
Cate Blanchett's Englishwoman in Turin, devastated to find that in seeking to kill a drug baron, she's accidentally wiped out innocent bystanders instead, presents a morally compromised protagonist and it takes some doing on both the writer's and director's part to allow empathy with her to live on. When Giovanni Ribisi's policeman falls for her at first sight, a suspension of disbelief is required, and by his own admission Tykwer got similarly swept away by the opportunity to use his aerial camera toy on lush Italian landscapes. But it's worth it in the end for sheer ambience, and aficionados of either director can't feel cheated.
7/10
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