Run Lola Run

(1998, 81 minutes, German with subtitles)
Written and Directed by Tom Tykwer

Cast: Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Nina Petri, Joachim Krol, Armin Rohde, Heino Ferch

Relentless pounding, kinetic pacing, music that reverbs off the edges of your nerves, like a film version of Wired magazine, RUN LOLA RUN is a techno thriller and a post-MTV twenty-minute road trip on the hoof, played three times through.

When Lola, who is never late, fails to pick up Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) and the illegal 100,000 marks he must hand over in order for him to prove to a master criminal that he is trustworthy, the story is set in frenetic motion. Manni leaves the bag of money on the train by mistake, a homeless man takes it, and Manni, now afraid for his life, considers robbing a supermarket at noon so he can pay off his boss. It is 11:40am, Manni is screaming at Lola (Franka Potente), on the phone, at once blaming her and begging for help and the clocks are ticking. Lola surfs her mental database, in Neuromancer fashion for someone who can help, chooses her father, a bank official, and she is off and running.

German director Tom Tykwer's third film, RUN LOLA RUN breaks new ground in the road movie genre using ticking clocks, Simpson-like animation, three different scenarios and endings, blind people who see, unsuspecting encounters and spiraling images, as his patterned landscape to save Manni a young would-be criminal. We are led to believe that the film seeks to answer those deep 3:00am meaning-of-life questions that haunt us all, yet we are faced with those other unrelenting questions as well: "what if.?" and "if only.?" Indeed, though all forms of transportation are visible and available to Lola, she runs. Then, at the end, she steals a ride in an ambulance. There, in a moment of calm generosity and giving, we see and experience the power of love over death.

In this relatively short feature film, approximately 10 minutes of its 81 are taken up with Lola running to save the man she loves. Yet it feels, truly feels, as if she and the film are always on the move. If a road movie is about the adventures people encounter along the way of life, then RUN LOLA RUN is that and more. Lola is the wind of a film that works and moves credibly within a moral universe, leaving much room for the action of the Spirit.

[Rose Pacatte, FSP; Director, Pauline Center for Media Studies, Boston, MA 02130; October 2000, written for the City of Angels Film Festival Program Guide]