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 RUN
LOLA RUN
(aka Lola rennt, 1998)
A film review by Jeff Johnson
Writer/Director: Tom Tykwer
Franka Potente .... Lola
Moritz Bleibtreu .... Manni
Herbert Knaup .... Lola's Father
Nina Petri .... Jutta Hansen
Armin Rohde .... Mr Schuster
Joachim Król .... Norbert von Au
Time is a languid liquid in which we move. We are kneaded beneath its
delicate hands and through its ferocious grip we attempt to run. Yet,
like a shadow that is projected ahead of us, we're doomed to follow in
the path that lies ahead.
Time is tricky, it's trippy and above all it's ticking away as you read
this sentence…
…tickticktick…tock.
Run Lola Run is a flashtastic, glimmer-cut, zoooooomilicious
sort of time-wave that you ride as it rides with abandon before you, around
you and past you. It's chock-full of a whiplash visual style that captures
the glittering razorsedge landscape between the forever ticking and tocking
seconds.
In a comma spliced sentence, (I'm running low on time) Run Lola Run
is about a boyfriend, a mob boss, 100,000 German Marks, a girlfriend named
Lola and 20 precious minutes. These elements, all beat up by a superb
techno soundtrack, serve as a winding ball of tension that fuels the expert
thievery of time beneath the Berlin sky.
It's a film that is funny in a timing sort of way, funny in a way that
the Fates can be some times. You'll chuckle, you'll laugh and you'll look
on in horror from the edge of your seat as you see that Run Lola Run
is displaying the arbitrary arm of time pointing to the ridiculous, sometimes,
hammy way that the unfolding minutes of your life await you.
Writer/Director Tom Tykwer uses all 81 minutes of Run
Lola Run to create a wonderfully frenetic, stylish tale that balances
on the very curve where reality and fantasy, the explicable and the
uncanny, the now and…the now, meet. It's a film that revels in our
connection with time and the effect, in turn, that that connection has
on every other human being walking the planet; a minute here affects an
inch there, so watch your oncoming minutes with care.
Franka Potente, as the main character Lola, is all strength
and beauty. Lola is resourceful, willful and smart; she commands the screen
both physically and psychologically as a 21st Century slacker heroine
caught between the clock and a hard place. Potente's Lola, which has become
something of an icon in certain circles, is such a strong character due
to the fact that Potente plays her with an intensity so as to see the
turning gears inside her as she deals with her unexpected future.
The same can be said for Moritz Bleibtreu who plays
Lola's boyfriend, Manni. His tense, shaky bravado is perfectly played
as he stands inside a phone booth / pressure cooker calling any and all
for last minute help. The rest of the cast is similarly perfect in their
roles, creating characters that have three-dimensional shades amidst multiple
intentions.
Yet, the fact remains that no matter how well the other actors did in
creating their characters, the film is constructed so as the real stars
of the film are Lola, the techno soundtrack and the clock. The three are
woven together so eloquently and with such bold brilliance as to move
the film along with the effortlessness of a well-oiled Swiss made.
Run Lola Run is a great example of technique blended with story
to create a unique style. Every frame of Run Lola Run is pulsing to the
clicktick of the clock. It's as self-conscious and dryhumored as this
review and it's assured, entertaining and judicious (unlike this review).
You owe it to yourself to rent Run Lola Run just for the ride.
It will be 81 minutes of your life that might just change the way you
cash in on whatever remaining minutes you might have.
JEFF JOHNSON - 26 January 2003
 
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