Little Red Meets Chaos Theory
Run Lola Run
Cast: Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Nina Petri
Director: Tom Tykwer
Movie Help Web Popcorn Kernels:
Manni is crawling out of his skin. Tearing at his hair in anguish, he replays the turn of events that brought him to this point - standing in a phone booth roughly twenty minutes away from becoming a "grease stain."
As Lola anxiously listens on the other end of the line, we learn that Manni was acting as a courier for some shady deal. His jobs are usually routine, but this time he's been entrusted with 100,000 German marks. Lola was supposed to pick him up, but her cycle was stolen. Manni took the train, but had to bolt when the police arrived. Unfortunately he left the money on the train, and it disappeared. Now he's frantic. His boss is not an understanding man.
"You're NEVER late!" he wails to Lola, who desperately tries to dissuade him from robbing a nearby supermarket to get the life-preserving cash. Manni agrees to wait twenty minutes; if she cannot come up with something and meet him by then, he'll hit the supermarket just before his boss is due to arrive.
All fiction relies on the question "What If?" This film, written and directed by Tom Tykwer, is obsessed with the question. Lola is never late - but what if she were to be late when it counted the most? Throughout the film there are both explicit and subtle reminders that small variations can change the course of your life. Minutes or even seconds can be your salvation or damnation. This could be a film about chaos theory.
Tykwer tells the story of Lola and her furious attempt to put her mistake right through a number of nonlinear cinematic devices and a relentless, repetitive and sometimes haunting techno soundtrack. Creative use of cartoon animation, flashbacks and unique flash-forwards are blended effectively to keep your eyes and mind fixed on the lives that intertwine for the next twenty minutes.
Lyrics from the film give you a taste for Lola's demeanor:
Never, never, never, never letting go
Never giving up
Never saying no
Just go, go
Never stop and never think
And do, do, do, do the right thing.
After the phone call, Lola spends a hypnotic moment weighing the alternatives in her mind, then blasts away, her hair an orange-red afterburner. Franka Potente portrays Lola as a woman who will let nothing slow her down. She is never sidetracked for more than a few seconds. Is it her love for Manni that drives her, her sense of responsibility, or simply an intrinsic intensity? Quite possibly, the seemingly insurmountable task of acquiring 100,000 marks in 20 minutes is less troubling and less complicated than the questions she has about her own life.
To quote another lyric:
Love is just the only strain
that makes me live through all my pain
I don't know if your love is true
but I can't think of anything but you
Her insecurities about her relationship with Manni manifest themselves as questions about the flimsy nature of all relationships and the role of happenstance. What if we had never met? What if you were with some other girl? You say you love me, you say I am the best, but wouldn't you say the same thing if it were someone else?
Manni is played well by Moritz Bleibtreu as a man over his head who would probably be lost in general without Lola. Manni is unremarkable compared to Lola, which suggests that her feelings of insecurity are perhaps not about Manni's feelings, but about the choices she herself has made.
The film does not slow down much during its 80-odd minutes. There is action; there is suspense. There is violence, death, and rebirth. And throughout it all, there is Lola running, pleading, and risking herself to save the day.
Though this may sound odd, Lola reminds me a lot of the heroine in another (excellent) recent film: Ginger in Chicken Run. Both relentlessly search for a solution to their problems, putting themselves at risk for the sake of others. Both have a love interest who is not quite as put together as herself. Both think quickly, then act. The most obvious difference (aside from their species) is that Ginger does not question her situation while she acts. Lola acts despite her questions.
The version of this German film (original title: Lola rennt) that I saw was dubbed. I would have preferred subtitles, but I didn't realize there was a dubbed version. Make sure when you rent to check specifically what you're getting. (Actually, to tell the truth, I somehow picked up a copy of a Cartoon Network Scooby Doo release. Luckily, I took a closer look at the tape once I got into the car and the video store allowed me to exchange it. Boy THAT would have been a bummer if I had found out my mistake at midnight, my usual viewing hour.)
There's a good reason this film won the Audience Award at Sundance in 1999. Its frenetic pace and visual poetry offer both constant eye candy and a banquet of food for thought; few people will come away from the table still hungry for something to like.
