Tom Tykwer to adapt Dave Eggers' autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng

Tom Tykwer and Valentino Achak Deng

One of my favorite movies of recent years is Tom Tykwer’s Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (2000), AKA The Princess and the Warrior in the United States. The film stars Franka Potente (hawt!) and Benno Fürmann as two dysfunctional vectors from very different worlds who awkwardly, violently come together for catharsis. Romance ensues. And a botched bank heist. It was Tykwer’s follow-up to Lola rennt (1998) AKA Run Lola Run in the states. The kineticism of Run Lola Run is not typical of Tykwer’s other films and many who enjoyed Run Lola Run jumped ship when the slightly more morose and measured pace of The Princess and the Warrior, a return to earlier works like Winter Sleepers (1997) in terms of tone and pacing, failed to deliver the exact same experience.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), a tale of a savant/prodigy who turns to murder in the pursuit of the essence of olfactory perfection, and Heaven (2002), with Giovanni Ribisi and Cate Blanchett, continued that trend before The International (2009) went completely off the rails (in a good way) with a kinetic and suspenseful thriller starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts. That 2009 film, sometimes compared to the Bourne films (which featured Franka Potente in a supporting role) or Demme’s The Manchurian Candidate (2004), is more subtle and compelling, in my humble opinion. Some might substitute “dull” for “subtle and compelling,” but it’s quite likely I’d kick them in their dick if they said it to my face.

One of Tykwer’s next projects (the other being Cloud Atlas) is a film adaptation of Dave Eggers’ 2006 book What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng. The book tells the story of Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee, and member of the so-called Lost Boys of Sudan. Not the Lost Boys of Santa Carla, California.

Though, let’s get real here for a moment. I’d pay to see both of the Coreys in a Tykwer flick. Huh? Anybody else feel me on this?

Lost boys not of Sudan.

Apparently, the film will feature Daniel Brühl from the also-excellent comedy Good Bye, Lenin! (2003) which tells the tale of a young man (Brühl) who goes to extraordinary lengths to keep his socialist mother from finding out that the Berlin Wall has fallen and East Germany is essentially no more. This article about Brühl reading from Eggers’ book with Tykwer and Deng on June 12, 2009 at the Admiralspalast in Berlin does not mention Brühl, but he’s shown in an accompanying photo with Tykwer and Deng: Tykwer spins Sudanese refugee story (translated to English). Also, here is a Flickr stream from the Admiralspalast event.

Tykwer, Deng, and Brühl.

Finally, please enjoy this exceptional clip of the Simpsons parodying Run Lola Run (in German).

Yes, this post is chock full of random goodness. Know why? Because at Brosef K’s blog, I will never leave coins in the sofa. That’s a promise.