Product: Run, Lola, Run [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 4.0
A fun flick about time, freedom, love and the meaning of life that's as intense as it is intellectually exciting
When her boyfriend, Manni, loses 100,000 German marks that belong to his mafia boss, Lola has just 20 minutes to somehow find that impossible amount and bring it to him before he does something dangerous. She can run fast, but it may not be fast enough to save his life. Combining animation, snapshots, vibrant colored film, with video and black and white sequences, Tom Twyker tells an exciting action adventure love story, that marked a new era of German and world cinema. The intensity, the colors, the music, all brought together in an avant-garde style that combines classical storytelling techniques with MTV-era edits, is unique and exhilarating. It's like a music video and video game and fairy tale and art film, all rolled into one. It's likeLast Year at Marienbadon speed, where the intellectual intrigue and excitement is matched by real and visceral thrills.The film opens with a quotation from T.S. Elliot, juxtaposed quickly with another from a famous German soccer coach, suggesting up front the film's aims to transcend the distinction between popular and high-brow entertainment, poetry and sport, art and action. In my mind, the film succeeds tremendously. The acting throughout is strong, but Franka Potente channels Lola with a combination of fierce determination and vulnerability that is fascinating to watch.The opening scene establishes the philosophical dimensions of the story, with a light touch. Images of anonymous humanity, with emphasis on a seemingly random few individuals here and there, are accompanied by a narrator. Human beings ask endless questions, and every answer provokes new questions. In the end they all come down to a single question and a single answer: the ball is round, and the game lasts 90 minutes. If life is a game, there are some basic guidelines: at some point the game ends, and there are basic parameters such as laws of nature that can't be violated. Beyond that: it's all theory. Twyker employs a unique approach to non-linear storytelling, in order to explore what matters and what's in our control in the context of a life where so much is left to chance. To say much more would be to spoil some of the delight of seeing this film for the first time. I've seen it several, and get something new each viewing. It's like the spiral that serves as a primary visual motif throughout the film, the circle that turns back upon itself with a difference each time. Or like the line from Elliot that gets things rolling: the end of our adventures is when we come back to the beginning and see it fresh as if for the very first time. I get that feeling every time I watch this film. Highly recommended.