"Run, Lola, Run"
A Film Review by
Linda Lopez McAlister
on "The Women's Show"
WMNF-FM 88.5, Tampa, FL
August 14, 1999
There haven't been many memorable German films that have made it into
U.S. theaters in the last several years. when I was in Germany recently
I
heard Germans complaining that almost all the films playing there were
foreign imports. So it is very nice, indeed, to see the work of a young
German filmmaker with loads of talent and originality and youthful zest.
That's what you'll find if you go down to the Tampa Theater this week
and take in "Run, Lola, Run." This is the work of Tom Tykwer who has
obviously read the Quintin Tarrantino handbook from cover to cover, and is
greatly enamored of bravura shot making and every cinematographic trick in
the book. Besides the slow motion and closeups of things like telephone
receivers, overhead camera shots, shots that have the camera circling
around
the actors, and clever fast montages, he even throws in a bit of animation
for good measure. Much of the film is edited at a really fast pace.
Tykwer
has a wicked sense of humor and a touch of the philosopher in him and it
makes for a really fun and engrossing movie.
You wouldn't think so from a plot summary. Lola (Franke Potente) is a
contemporary young woman with the bright scarlet hair currently
fashionable
among German 20-somethings. She has no visible means of support and
lives
with her boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) who seems to be trying out for
a
job with a local drug kingpin. When Manni leaves DM100,000 of the drug
guy's money in a plastic bag on a train, he calls Lola in hysterics,
terrified that he's going to be killed in 20 minutes when the drug guy
finds
out. Lola, runs through Berlin for 20 minutes trying to get to him and
bail him out of his predicament. And, in the film, she makes this run
three
times. That's a hour's worth of shots of a woman running. It's an
enormous
tour de force to turn this idea into a really funny, compelling, exciting
and emotional film. Tykwer does it with great style and makes you think
at
the same time. The three different versions of Lola's great run
illustrate
the point that any little difference in what you decide to do or in things
that just happen to change your plan, or make you a minute earlier or
later,
can make a momentous difference in your life.
In the first version, Lola's run that includes a stop by her father's
bank to ask him for the money ends tragically for Lola and Manni. But
the
filmmaker lets her do it again and this time she is bitten by a bulldog
she
had passed by without incident the first time. This delays her long
enough
to alter all the other things that happen to her along the route. The
results are different but still end in disaster for Lola and Manni. On
the
third run the timing is a bit different still and the results are
enormously
different from the first two versions.
It's all great fun, well acted by the lead characters (including
Herbert Knaup who plays Lola's adulterous father and is currently also
playing an adulterous Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in a new German film
called
"Die Braut").
Needless to say, three 20 minute dashes through Berlin doesn't add up
to
a very long movie and even with the introductory section and a couple of
scenes between the various versions of the run the whole thing runs only
about 75 minutes. It's short but sweet and if you want to see what the
young generation of German filmmakers are offering up, go see "Run, Lola,
Run." You'll enjoy it.
For the WMNF Women's Show, this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women and
Film.
Copyright 1999. All rights reserved. Please do not copy or reproduce
this
review without permission of the author: mcalister@chuma1.cas.usf.edu
Posted 8/16/99