Run Lola Run Review
by Greg King (gregking AT netau DOT com DOT au)October 18th, 1999
RUN LOLA RUN (M).
(Columbia Tristar)
Director: Tom Tykwer
Stars: Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Nina Petri, Joachim Krol. Armin Rohde, Heino Ferch, Suzanne von Borsody, Sebastian Schipper
Running time: 81 minutes
(German, with English subtitles).
This grungy, energetic, but off beat German film has been a huge hit on the festival circuit, and should appeal to audiences looking for something a little different from the usual bland Hollywood blockbusters. Exciting young German director Tom Tykwer (Winter Sleepers, etc) takes the basic premise of the thriller movie - the race against the clock scenario - and dazzlingly interweaves it with a provocative look at how choices, destiny and fate can affect our lives.
Unfolding at a breathless pace and set to a pulsating electronic soundtrack, Run Lola Run tells three versions of the same story.
Lola (wonderfully brought to life by the strikingly red headed Franka Potente) and her boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) are a pair of punks who have big plans for the future. But then Manni becomes involved in a simple courier run for a local drug dealer. He unfortunately loses 100,000 marks of drug money on a train, and has just twenty minutes to find the money before he meets with the mobster. Unsure of exactly how she can help, Lola agrees to meet Manni in twenty minutes, and thus begins a desperate race against time.
The story unfolds in real time, as Lola races across town to a rendezvous with an uncertain, pernicious fate. But things do not go smoothly for the pair. The same story essentially unfolds three times, but in each subsequent telling, chance, coincidental encounters and accidents conspire to change the outcome. The fate of the various characters dramatically changes with each retelling.
The precociously talented Tykwer is clearly in love with the process of film making and utilises a variety of medium to bring a sense of kinetic energy to the film. Tykwer uses a startling combination of fast and slow motion camerawork, razor sharp editing, split screen effects, animation, and flash forward montages to good effect. The clever structure is propelled along by the dynamic presence of Potente, winner of the 1998 Bambi media Awards and one of the most original screen heroines of recent years.
Run Lola Run is indicative of a new, emerging contemporary German cinema. This colourful, energetic, vicariously exciting, brilliantly constructed, and breathtakingly executed film sweeps you along with its pace and innovation and leaves you breathless and exhausted at the end.
***1/2
greg king
http://www.netau.com.au/gregking
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