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Words cannot express the joy you will experience while watching this lightning fast film. Clocking in at a mere 80 minutes, Run Lola Run zips through so quickly that you wish it were longer so you could enjoy it more. Lola was the highest grossing film in Germany last year, with good reason. It is inventive, funny, and has a damn catchy soundtrack. Lola (Franka Portente) has flame red hair and a couple of tattoos. And a very dependent boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreau). Manni has lost 100,000 marks, and is meeting the man who was supposed to get the money in 20 minutes. He is at a phonebooth panicking. It's up to Lola to come up with the money and get to him (on the other side of Berlin) before he goes across the street and robs the supermarket. But wait, 20 minutes you say? But isn't the movie 80 minutes long? This is where it gets fun. This movie originated with a image of a woman running in director Tom Tykwer's head. The story came later. It's no secret that Lola gets three chances to help Manni. Much like Sliding Doors (even though Run Lola Run came out first), each time is off from the other by a matter of seconds. And what a differences a couple seconds make. You get to watch how it affects Lola, Manni, as well as people that Lola bumps into along the streets of Berlin. The camera pans beautfully, in sweeping fluid motions, capturing Lola from afar and up close. There isn't much dialogue, but not much is needed. Tykwer has infused the soundtrack with nonstop catchy techno music. From the unique opening sequence to the reverse credits at the end, there is rarely a moment when there is no background music. The charged soundtrack serves only to heighten the urgency and seems to make the movie fly faster. Tykwer and Portente lend their voices to the soundtrack, which won awards at the MTV Awards in Germany. In essence, this movie is an 81 minute music video. In a summer where movies that choose to bend reality seem the norm, this is definitely at the top of the list. Run Lola Run is not playing widely, but you will be pleasantly surprised if you seek it out. | ||
| Haro rates it: Really Good | ||
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1 hour 21 minutes, German with English subtitles. Rated R for some violence and language. 8. Run Lola Run Review (By Charles Taylor for Salon Arts & Entertainment)
June 18, 1999 |
The writer-director of "Run Lola Run," Tom Tykwer, must have heard the phrase "moving pictures" at an impressionable age and taken it literally. For the 81 minutes this toy of a movie skitters and leaps across the screen it almost never takes a breath. Like the Tykwer-composed techno music laid end to end on the soundtrack, the filmmaker is in love with rhythm, propulsive motion, variation that only comes after repetition. During the chill-out sections -- the scenes between Lola's father and his mistress, or the interludes with Lola and Manni in bed -- the movie stops dead in its tracks. But Tykwer always finds the beat. An enormous hit in its own country, "Run Lola Run" is Tykwer's fourth movie but only his first to be released here. The pacing of the film is so quick that it's hard to tell if Tykwer has any feel for character development or directing actors. He does, however, have a canny sense for how a kinetic piece of filmmaking should look and move. "Run Lola Run" isn't, except for the performance of Franka Potente, a particularly warm movie, and in a few stray moments Tykwer even succumbs to smartass nihilism. But I think it's important to emphasize that he's a filmmaker who appears genuinely to work by instinct rather than calculation. The feel of "Run Lola Run" is nothing like that recent piece of pint-sized Tarantinoism "Go." I'm afraid, though, that it might seem indistinguishable to moviegoers who are put off by the way Tykwer unleashes a barrage of zooms and jump cuts before you settle into the movie and the tricky, off-kilter editing. But Tykwer is out to tickle the audience rather than pummel it. He wants us to be as breathlessly caught up in Lola's race against the clock as she is, not hanging coolly back, congratulating ourselves on our own hipness. On a very basic level, "Run Lola Run" shows a faith in the romantic possibilities of movies. It isn't charming or magical, but Tykwer isn't embarrassed about creating a world where anything is possible: last-minute betrayals or last-minute miracles, the sudden spurts of good luck or bad luck that can make you laugh at the sheer movieness of it all. He's the type of romantic who's distinctly of this moment, sprung from music videos and Gameboys. He approaches his story like a kid who finds himself defeated early on by his favorite video game and who keeps whacking the reset button until things turn out like he wants them to. "Run Lola Run" contains three different versions of Lola's run, each structured around the people and obstacles Tykwer introduces during the opening sequence. Those obstacles become the movie's -- no pun intended -- running gags, and like all good running gags, there's no telling when or how they'll turn up next. There's also no telling how any sequence will look. "Lola's" sprint of a premise and pace isn't enough for Tykwer. Sequences are in 35 mm, video, even animated; he and cinematographer Frank Griebe use slow motion (in one sequence so detailed you can see the muscles in Lola's face ripple under her skin as her feet hit the pavement), jump cutting, hand-held cameras, aerial shots and some particularly fluid split-screen sequences that divide the frame two and even three different ways. (These are perhaps the best thing in the movie; you take in the beauty of the execution even as the device ratchets up the suspense.) "Run Lola Run" doesn't go beneath the surface, and that's a problem when Tykwer sticks a tentative toe in the pond of philosophical musing (it turns into a bog that throws him off step). But sometimes surfaces have their own delights, and "Run Lola Run" is a love song to the speed of movies, urban living, pop music. Lola's predicament is a revved-up version of the way modern life can feel, an endless race against time and chance. As Manni, Bleibtreu doesn't offer much to the camera; everything about him seems thick, opaque, a drag on the movie's wellspring of energy. It doesn't matter much to us whether Manni lives or dies -- except for Lola's sake. The outcome of the game is less important to Tykwer and to us than the pleasure of watching it being played. You want to see Lola keep running the same way you want to hear a great pop song again as soon as it ends. The 24-year-old Potente gives Tykwer the image that pulls his movie together. Whatever visceral lyricism the film achieves seems to emanate from her bones. With a shock of bright-red hair and functional street garb (gray tank top, orange jeans, Dr. Martens) she's stripped down, ready for action. Emotionally, Potente seems all essentials as well. She has the look of every wised-up yet naive street kid you see hanging around record stores or clubs; it doesn't faze her that her boyfriend is running errands for a gangster, but she reacts to the possibility of his being killed as if it had never before crossed her mind. That naiveté gives the movie a human edge (it might seem just an exercise in style without her). The determination in Potente's running limbs, and the anxiousness visible in her dark eyes and in the set of her downturned mouth, combine to give her the look of someone who hopes for the best and expects the worst. You fall for Lola not because of her devotion to Manni, but just because she can be devoted that fiercely. She's a punk Pegasus on an errand of love. In "I Wish," one of several soundtrack songs here composed by Tykwer and sung by Potente, she sings, "I wish I were a beating heart that never comes to rest." Luckily, for the movie and for us, whatever Lola wants, Lola gets. Potente pumps strong and true from the first frame to the last. (salon.com | June 18, 1999)
9. Catch Tom Tykwer's Breathless Techno Mindgame in "Run Lola Run" (By Jurgen Fauth) OK, I'll confess. I'm German. To me, there wasn't anything "foreign" about Run Lola Run. I recognized the Berlin street corners she passes on her way through the city. I didn't even have to read the subtitles. Watching this movie in a theater in New Orleans made me more than a little bit homesick. So, to be up front about it: When I tell you I loved this movie, I'm biased. But don't let that put you off. Even if you don't recognize the grocery store, this may well be the best movie you'll see all year. First thing: it's fast. Even on second viewing, there is not a dull moment in the movie. From the heartpounding start and the lightning-speed exposition to the quirky final credits, this movie grabs you by the throat and, well, runs with it. The conceit is simple: Lola (played by the wonderful Franka Potente) is in trouble. If she can't come up with 100,000 marks, her boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) will die. The catch: she has only twenty minutes to come up with the money. Lola's race to save her lover is repeated three times with minor variations that lead to widely different endings. It's Groundhog Day on ecstasy. Lola succeeds on all counts: it is a thrill ride that out-runs every other contender playing right now; it is a stylish visual feast that succeeds artistically by employing its tricks and gimmicks in ways that heighten the impact of the story; and it succeeds emotionally because we believe Lola's fear and love: a runner can't lie. "Run Lola Run" is set in a brightly-colored fairy-tale world in which the elements of the story can be rearranged and connected at will. To see director Tom Tykwer play with nuns, bums, guns, crooks, bankers, ambulances, and policemen is pure delight - it's as if we were granted a glance at the creative process itself, three different drafts of the same story, revised and rearranged until the final version satisfies. There is a study of chance, time, and fate hidden somewhere beneath the techno soundtrack. A pet turtle, a set of falling dominoes: there are details in this film that carry meaning you won't catch until a second viewing, but the mixture is nothing short of perfect: the deeper levels of German ponderousness, for those who enjoy this kind of thing, are buried deep enough to allow those of us who are just into it for the sheer exhilaration of watching Franka Potente run to not worry about any of it. And she can run. (About.com: World / Independent Film ) 10. Run Lola Run (www.german-cinema.de) 11. Run Lola Run (By James Berardinelli)
Run Lola Run is one of those movies with the kind of advance buzz that it's impossible to ignore. A huge hit both at the 1998 Toronto Film Festival (where it made its North American debut) and at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, the feature has already won over a legion of film critics. Run Lola Run is a must-see for anyone who enjoys a fast-paced, innovative motion picture that refuses to be defined by norms of the genre. As far as I'm concerned, it's the most fun I have had at any movie thus far in 1999. Directed by Tom Tykwer, this German import is a kinetic meditation on fate and destiny. It tells the story of Lola (Franka Potente, an actress with true screen presence), a '90s girl with Raggedy Ann hair, a large tattoo, and a voice so penetrating that when she screams, she can shatter glass. She's also athletic, because, as one might expect from the title, Lola spends most of the movie running. Her dim-witted boyfriend, Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), has lost 100,000 marks that he owes to the mob. Lola has 20 minutes to find that money and get it to Manni or he will be killed. So she takes to the streets, straining every resource to make the score before it's too late. Instead of just showing us one of Lola's approaches, however, Twyker gives us three to choose from, throwing us into the Sliding Doors/Blind Chance alley of alternate realities. You can essentially pick your own ending, each of which offers its share of irreverent surprises. Sandwiched in between the alternative storylines are soft-focus scenes of Lola and Manni reflecting on life and love. These sequences serve a dual purpose: to allow us to catch our breath and to deepen our sympathy for these two intensely likable characters. Saturated with irony, the film moves at a blazing speed to the
accompaniment of a relentless techno soundtrack; blink and you'll probably
miss a thrown-in visual gag. Using an innovative mix of animation, still
photography, slow motion, and normal cinematography, Twyker illustrates
how the smallest change in what a person does can alter the rest of their
life (not to mention the lives of others, including complete strangers
they pass on the street). Harlan Jacobson, a critic friend of mine, called
this a "90 minute MTV video," but, while that statement captures the
film's spirit, it greatly shortchanges Run Lola Run, which has as
much depth as it has energy and action. 12. Run Lola Run Movie Reviews (AllWatchers.com) | ||
