Run Lola Run ****
rated R Sony Pictures Classics in German with English subtitles starring Franks Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Nina Petri, Armin Rohde written and directed by Tom Tykwer
It is so very rare to see a film that is so involving that you're afraid to look away from the screen for a second. Such a film would make time stop; it would be an experience that would feel so lifelike that you'd never look at a movie the same way again. Such a film would finally show you why movies are made. Not for the benefit of the filmmaker; but for the benefit of the viewer. Tom Tykwer's "Run Lola Run" is such a film. It is a film so frenetically fast-paced and involving that it makes "Go" seem like a Theo Angelopolous melodrama.
"Run Lola Run" starts off with the sounds of a techno beat that doesn't cease until the movie is through. The film is the product of music videos, comic books, video games and pure genius. The title character is first shown as a cartoon in the blistering opening credit sequence.
Red-haired Lola(Franka Potente) has just recieved a call from her boyfriend, Manni(Moritz Bleibtreu). Through tears, he tells her that because she didn't come to pick him up, he owes 100,000dm to a "friend". The money that he was supposed to deliver was accidentally left on a subway and stolen by a homeless man. Manni has 20 minutes to get the money, or he will be killed.
Lola explains that her motorbike was stolen, and she couldn't come to pick him up. She tells him to wait in the phone booth and somehow she will get ahold of 100,000dm and get it to him. Full speed ahead, Lola starts running in whichever direction she can in order to get the money. Her quest leads her to find out some incriminating family secrets; and for every person whom she bumps into, a little sequence is flashed showing what happened to that person afterwards.
This plot, of Lola running to get the money, is repeated three times, making up the entirety of the film. Each one of her attempts has a different, meaningful outcome, but she always can get another chance(at the beginning of the film, a quote is shown that says "The end of the game is the beginning of the game").
It's almost impossible to describe in words what a masterpiece "Run Lola Run" is. The end of the millenium is a perfect time to release the film in the U.S., because the film is the debut of a whole new style of film. A film, that is 80 minutes long, stylish, continuously fast-paced, and impossible not to enjoy. In my book, writer-director Tom Tykwer has just become the next master of suspense.
Looking back at 1999's films, I noticed that "Run Lola Run" is far better than anything that has been released. You could combine "The Matrix" and "Go" and still not come close to the energy that this film produces. "Run Lola Run" is purely cinematic in its form, and it pushes the medium of film to its limit. This German gem may just be this year's foreign film that will become a runaway hit. In essence, "Run Lola Run" is perfect both in style and in substance.
a review by Akiva Gottlieb, The Teenage Movie Critic akiva@excite.com http://teenagemoviecritic.8m.com
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