Product: Run, Lola, Run [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 5.0
Kinetic!
That's really the only word for this film. Energy, action, running.I bought the DVD because I had loved it when it first came out on video (foreign films don't usually make it to theaters in my area). I loved it again when I watched it after I bought it. Besides Lola being attractive enough to hold your attention while doing all that running, the story never lets you rest.If you haven't seen it, Lola's (Franka Potente) boyfriend, Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), has just lost a bag of money meant for his mobster boss (the dope left it on the subway) so he needs 100,000 marks in the next twenty minutes. It is up to Lola to find the money and get it to him. If she doesn't arrive by noon, he is going to rob the nearby grocery store (which supposedly makes 200,000 marks a day, and so would have 100,000 by noon.)She mentally goes through everyone she knows and decides on her father, who works at a bank. Her moped was stolen recently, so that's out. (She doesn't bother to ask anyone to borrow a car, but that's a small gripe.)So she runs.And what a runner she is! (One wonders how much training she did for this film as she seems barely to break a sweat. She simply shines.)The story takes the path that, depending on luck, time, and actions, each decision you make leads to a different result. We are shown three possible outcomes of Lola's trip to her father's bank and her subsequent run to meet Manni. All three hinge on small changes in how she gets down the stairs of her apartment building. Everything from that point on is different in small enough ways to greatly affect the end result. Changes are even evident in how the action affects the people whose paths she crosses (we know because we see successions of snapshots depicting their lives after this incident).All the while, there is this terrific electronic music playing in the background, not so that it's annoying, but enough to add to the feel of speed that the film has. (I also bought the soundtrack and keep it in my CD travel case.)All in all, a superb film and one that I think anyone interested in avant-garde cinema with a high energy level would enjoy.