Friday Feeling - Run Lola Run
Friday, August 22nd, 2008
Keep On Running
The minute “Run Lola Run” kicks into action, you’re swept along at lightning speeds as the unstoppable red-haired Lola (Franka Potente) sprints through the streets of Berlin, dodging cars, window panes and a host of nuns, driven by desperation, always running.
The story goes as follows: Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend, Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), who is due to give his gang boss 100,000 Deutsche Mark at 12 noon but accidentally leaves it on the underground after bolting from two ticket inspectors. The bag of cash is then picked up by a tramp. The couple have 20 minutes to come up with the cash, somehow, somewhere, or Manni will be killed.
The film then plays with three alternative realities. We see the same scene three times. Lola sprints past the same people, but in each version some tiny turn of events changes the course of Lola’s fate massively. Cleverly, whenever Lola runs past (or into) a person, we see several snapshots of their life to come. In the first scenario for example, Lola bumps into a poor woman who kidnaps a baby after her child is taken from her by social services. In the second version, the woman wins the lottery, and the third time around she experiences a religious conversion. The message is that tiny events can have enormous consequences.
Film is ideal for exploring alternative realities, and certainly director Tom Tykwer makes the most of his medium. The throbbing, hypnotic techno music, co-written by Tykwer, perfectly matches the film’s adrenaline-fuelled rush.
Refreshingly the film does not explore any moral themes, nor does it judge the violence and greed of gang members. Rather it is an introverted film which focuses almost exclusively on the running itself.
Run Lola Run is showing at 9pm tonight (Friday) on Fiver
