Product: Run, Lola, Run [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 4.0
Curious what-if game
I don't think this movie was really so much about the untypical heroine versus hero. I think it was more about the what-ifs situations.This movie is an interesting take on public perception with a heavy emphasis on the Butterfly effect. Lola has 20 minutes to produce 100,000 Marks or her boyfriend Manni gets killed. As she's running through the streets of Berlin figuring out how to come up with the cash, she bumps into people along the way who see this red-headed stranger in a hurry. No one really knows why she's in such a hurry nor is she aware of what's going on in their lives. Lola bumps into a woman with a baby carriage; what little importance she has for this woman as she struggles to save another life. The feelings are mutal from the woman, yet, three times we get a glimpse into her three possible futures. The uniqueness of the movie is depicted in three alternate endings based on different choices Lola makes in her desparation to get the cash for her boyfriend.Lola doesn't make discoveries about people until she stops for more than a minute to realize what is going on around her, and vice versa. Had she never gone to her father for money, she never would have found out he was having an affair. Had she stopped to talk to the woman with the baby carriage she might have found out she was buying a lottery ticket she would later win or was beaten or which ever scenario panned out. But then she would have missed the chance to meet her father. Etc. Etc. Etc. Questions leading to more questions to more questions.The butterfly effect is seen throughout the movie even in the beginning when Manni blames the loss of the money on Lola not showing up on time to pick him up after the drug deal which caused him to take the train to bump into the homeless man who distracted him from the sack of money he was supposed deliver and leaving it on the train. At first you scoff at the boyfriend's irresponsibility for blaming Lola for his own mess up, but that's where the butterfly effect really begins and, like it or not, Lola started it all.In the final scenario, Lola makes a different choice...she stops running lon enought to spend a few minutes with a dying man in an ambulance as he recovers. In the end, the running was for nought. Her boyfriend ends up solving his own problem. Lola wass useful in one man's life but useless in helping another. Is it all inconsequential? Just a passer by? Probably not.If you're not into alternative films then this might not be for you. Even I was left a little confused. Yet, it's a worthwhile movie taking on a curious angle on how in some form or another our actions affect others just in the nature of our being.