83) Run, Lola, Run

Lola rennt (1998)

Director: Tom Tykwer

Starring: Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Nina Petri, Armin Rohde

I thought I'd try and sneak one more film in before the end of the month as it's been a relatively slow month for movie viewing for me. I wanted something short, because I didn't have a lot of time, so grabbed Run, Lola, Run. I'd bought Run, Lola, Run ages ago but had never got around to watching it. Sometimes the idea of subtitles just seems exhausting. But after Ong-Bak I was up for it so gave it a go.

At 11:40am Lola (Potente) gets a phone call from her boyfriend Manni (Bleibtreu). His drug deal has gone horribly wrong. In a moment of panic he jumped off the train, leaving behind the back containing 100,000 Deutschmarks. He is convinced that he's a dead man when his boss arrives soon to collect. She now has 20 minutes to try and find 100,000 Deutschmarks and get it to Manni, or he is going to try and rob a nearby convenience store. Run, Lola, run!

European subtitled movies have certain connotations. We often assume they are going to be heavy, maybe a bit artistic, a lot of the time dramatic. One thing which I know that I personally have never associated with European subtitled movies is action, but a European subtitled action movie is exactly what you get with Tykwer's German film, Run, Lola, Run.

The key feature of the film which made this film notable when it came out, and still makes it worth seeing, is it's unique narrative structure. In Run, Lola, Run we get the same story told three times, in three different versions. Each telling starts with Lola receiving the phone call from Manni and then heading off to try and get her hands on 100,000 Deutschmarks but in each version slightly different things happen; she might make a different decision or an interaction with someone may go in a different direction, and each of these little differences alter the way the story ends up. It's really interesting to watch, because her journey from her apartment to Manni is made up of five or six key moments which appear in each retelling, but every time we come to those moments we get them slightly differently. It's kind of like that whole 'a butterfly flaps its wings on ones side of the world which causes a cyclone on the other' idea of the littlest things having big impacts. But the fact that the film is effectively three short films, each documenting Lola's 20 minute charge to try and find the money, gives the film a really pulsing sense of kinetic energy. Run, Lola, Run really is non-stop motion. You can maintain that high level of energy for 25mins in a way that is very difficult to do for 75mins, but by effectively replaying those 25mins three times you end up with 75mins that really pulse with energy.

Because the film is short (75mins is a short for a feature film, even more so when you consider the film is really 3 x 25mins) there is not a lot of time for character development. These characters don't undergo a transformation, they don't learn lessons, there are no character arcs. But what is amazing is that Tykwer is able to do just enough in fleshing out these characters that we care about them and grow sufficiently attached to them to be emotionally invested in their success.

Tykwer uses a number of different techniques in the film. There is an animation sequence which appears in all three of the tellings, in which Lola runs down the stairs of her apartment building past a man with a dog, there are also black and white sequences and fast and slow motion moments. But the most interesting stylistic device Tykwer employs is what he called "Now and Then" moments. A few times in the film Lola will run into a person and then in about three seconds we will get half a dozen quick stills accompanied by the sound of a camera flashing, in which we see a glimpse into that minor characters future. For example, for one character we see him having a bad accident on his bicycle, going to hospital, meeting a nurse their, going on a date, and getting married. These are really interesting little moments in the film because they each concern completely minor characters, but manage to flesh them out and make something of them. Also, like the other events of the story, these flash-forwards can change depending on the how their interaction with Lola changed.

This was a really fast paced, high energy movie. It's a subtitled movie for people who hate subtitled movies. I'm amazed that a Hollywood studio hasn't tried to remake it.