RUN LOLA RUN (LOLA RENNT)(director/writer: Tom Tykwer; cinematographer: Frank Griebe; cast: Franka Potente (Lola), Moritz Bleibtreu (Manni), Herbert Knaup (Lola's Father), Armin Rohde (Schuster), Joachim Krol (Norbert von Au), Nina Petri (Mrs. Hansen), 1998-Ger.)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
This is not an art movie, yet I saw it an art house theater. It is perfect for the mall, where teenagers experiencing brain drains can feel good about being mindless and not have to apologize that this is an American film, about that old cliche of young lovers relentlessly on the run. If seen at your friendly mall, you could, at least, be reassured that there is little chance of anyone trying to sneak it in as an art film, as was tried in the art house.
RLR should make it apparent that other countries can make obnoxious films with banal and predictable characters just as readily as Americans can.There is no substance in this fast food German meal, served up at a deliciously kinetic speed so that you have no time to think about how stupid the story is and how depraved the lead characters are, and what a lousy meal you have just had. The film is as deep as reading a Daffy Duck comic book or playing a road runner video game or watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and if that entertains you, then perhaps, I could recommend that you take a look at Run Lola Run, it might be what you are looking for.
It has the audacity to have in its opening credits a quote from T.S. Elliot's "Little Gidding", about how the end in life is only the beginning. In all probability, the blue-bloodied Elliott would not have cared for this film- and to quote him and then have a film that has nothing in the world to do with his poem or with the quote, except to show that even these crass critters who created this film aspire to a higher art form, is simply a ridiculous attempt by them to try and achieve credibility when it is not necessary to do so, this film stands on its own four paws.
The filmmaker also asks the complex questions, Who are Men? Where do they come from? What is their aim in life? These questions once asked on screen are, of course, never even attempted to be answered. Though it would have been good comedic dialogue to have the two leads, Lola (Franka Potente) and Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), try to resolve these deep philosophical questions.
What does take place is a soccer ball being kicked to open the action in the film, as the movie is supposed to be like a game, with the director making up the rules as he goes along.
There is a slight plot to this film, Lola's boyfriend for the past year, Manni, will be killed if he can't come up with 100,000 marks- which he got from a drug deal, but lost the moneybag on the train to a bum, blaming it on Lola for not meeting him on her moped as planned (her moped was stolen). As Manni frantically speaks to her on the phone, telling her she must now meet him across town in 20 minutes or else this guy who setup the deal, Ronnie, is going to kill him (now wouldn't that be a shame). The only other thing to note, is that Lola is the punk rocker type, with the raggedy-Ann hairstyle of blazing reddish/orange dyed hair and plenty of tattoos on her body. Manni, not to be undone, sports a few nifty tattoos himself, while also taking on the punk look.
The fun to this story, if you are going to have any, comes in following Lola as she makes a run for it through spots that she will revisit three different times each for 20-minutes and with three different versions, before the film is over, as any one of the versions could be true or none of them could be true, it just doesn't matter. Nothing matters, here. This is a disposable film, like junk food, when done you throw it in the waste can. The fun is in the run and the cartoonlike character she has become, and in the reactions she gets from those that she meets on the way.
After he tells her hysterically on the phone his only chance to stay alive is to hold up a nearby supermarket, she flings the red phone in the air, and bolts out of her mother's apartment, as a cartoon of her flashes on the TV screen and she rushes past her mom who is on the phone, and next we see her running live on the street. A few of her same markers will be, a visit to her father's bank, an encounter with an ambulance and men crossing the street with a pane of glass (boy, what Harold Lloyd could have done with that vaudeville skit), and a lady in the street who she keeps banging into. The clock is rewound for each version, as she starts over again in her mother's apartment, going through the same routine, but with different impressions and results.
Needless to say, anything goes here; this film does not try to make sense and it doesn't. Its comedy is on the low end of the totem pole of comedy, though the old silent comedians, such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton did bits similar to this, but they had a logic to their madcap humor and knew how to tell a story in their comedy. The other thing this film tried unsuccessfully to do, was show how chance could change one's life and make things turn out differently. There are so many films that tried this theme out for size, some successfully like Rashomon (1950), some modestly successful like Blind Chance (1982), others less successfully, such as Sliding Doors (1998), but none as unsuccessful as this one.
At least this subtitled, low-budget film flew by quickly and leaves you no worst for wear after seeing it... It certainly didn't appeal to me; I was just not smitten with its attempt to be such a cleverly edited, jejune summer film. And to mimic one of the few attempts at dialogue in the movie, when Lola and Manni try to form some sort of communication with each other to see if their love is for real, and she asks him, "How does he know that he loves her?" and he replies, "I just know." Well, I just know I didn't like this film.
REVIEWED ON 8/16/99 GRADE: D
Dennis Schwartz: " Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.ne
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