RUN, LOLA, RUN
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: This is a very high-energy German
film using some experimental cinematic techniques.
The film tells three alternate timelines for a
woman who has twenty minutes to get 100,000
Deutsche Marks. Lola makes different decisions and
different coincidences occur so the event has three
very different outcomes. The film sometimes is
contrived and does not play fair with the viewer,
but for a low-budget film, this is worth seeing.
Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1 (-4 to +4)
It has been suggested that history is a random walk affected by uncountably many tiny events, most too small to even notice. Chaos theory suggests that tiny changes lead to immense differences later in time. RUN, LOLA, RUN is a very clever low-budget film from Germany in which explores this idea. We see Lola (played by Franka Potente with day-glow red hair) live the same twenty or so minutes of crisis in three different ways (though each involves running a great deal). And we see how the outcome is different because of those choices.
Lola has lived with her boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) for about a year when the crisis takes place. Manni has a job acting as courier in a drug deal. In a moment of confusion Manni leaves a bag with 100,000 Deutsche Marks (roughly $50,000) on a subway. In a few minutes Manni will have to face his bosses. If he is without the money, he will probably be killed for his mistake. Rather than do that, Manni decides he will probably take his chances robbing a grocery. In a moment of panic he calls Lola and tells her what he is going to do in just twenty minutes. If Lola can get to him in twenty minutes with 100,000 Marks, he will abort his planned robbery. What does Lola do? In three different futures she handles the situation in three somewhat different ways and things turn out differently because of her efforts.
In the opening this film, written and directed by Tom Tykwer, talks about universal questions and suggests that this film will be driving at some answers. However any conclusions that RUN, LOLA, RUN draws are really suspect. The individual stories are contrived in many ways. Some coincidences are acceptable, but there are too many to make these three futures believable. In a cinematic version of snapshots we see the future for some of the tangential characters and it seems very different based on how Lola runs past the person. No mechanism for what is causing the differences is shown. In addition, Lola has some strange power that can only be called a "magical shriek" that has powers never explained. It makes the film a fantasy, in spite of otherwise realistic treatment of the alternate worlds. So in some senses this film is not as good as SLIDING DOORS, another film, far from perfect, on a very similar theme. And another problem is that the timing seems inconsistent between segments. If the first story took twenty minutes, they other two should have taken considerably longer. But even more serious is the fact we do not really get to know the main characters very well. Nobody's character is particularly well developed or made more comprehensible in the course of the film.
On the other hand, this film effortlessly shifts gears among film, video, and animation. The use of the different media probably allowed for some budget savings in what is clearly a low-budget film. The only time that the budget becomes an obvious problem is when the subtitles in the United States version are white on a white background making them impossible to read. The pace of even the opening credits are enough to leave the viewer panting. It seems to be an amalgam of many different cinematic styles, and the film makes that work. We learn a great deal about some of the characters by seeing them in the same situation but handling it three different ways.
RUN, LOLA, RUN is an unexpectedly provocative film that will be remembered as a curious novelty, if for no other reason. I rate it a6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1999 Mark R. Leeper
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