Product: Run, Lola, Run [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 5.0
FAITH IN FILMS
About once or twice a year a movie comes along that renews movie lover's faith in the genre and keeps them going to the theatre hoping to relive the experience. Run Lola Run is one such movie. Just when you think you've seen everything, German director Tom Tykwer takes you on a frenetic "Run" quite unlike anything seen before. The only thing that comes close to it visually are the post Wall Street Oliver Stone movies and none of them are as entertaining as this. The music is great in the way it matches both the fast paced moments and the slower ones in which the characters are sharing their thoughts. Part of the originality lies in the unlikeliest of heroines Lola. Her red hair could very well be fire the way she runs in three separate episodes which all focus on her getting to her boyfriend Manni in twenty minutes to help save him from an unforgiving drug dealer whom he owes money to but which he's lost. One would think early on that there would not be much time in this kind of framework to really come to care about Lola and her dilemma. The director Tykwer however, seems gifted in his ability to show only that which is essential and present it in a way that makes you not only care about Lola but makes you root her on as well. Finally, there is an element of magic in the story that rather than make the film seem unlikely has the effect of making one more resolute that the future is indeed in our hands. It's this magic engineered by Tykwer that makes this film not only one of the best foreign pictures of the year but one of the best pictures of the year period.