German title: Rennt Lola Rennt
wri./dir. Tom Tykwer
st. Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Nina Petr
15/6/99 State Theatre, Sydney Film Festival
Aye chihuahua! (or should that be Crash Bandicoot?) The interactive game meets cinema in Run Lola Run, with three alternative endings similar to the video game player's ability to save and reload, photographic flashcards used like hypertextual tangents, multiple viewpoints and replays of key action scenes. KO! Like a game, dialogue is also kept to a minimum, used mostly as setups for action sequences or level transitions, establishing new variations in gameplay. Once control is returned to the player, the camera is always moving, following its protagonist like in a third-person RPG. Hi-8 video is used whenever the main characters are not present in the scene, the loss of clarity and colour depth providing an interesting parallel to the grey mist or fog used in realtime strategy games like Starcraft. Lola herself is lifted straight out of a PSX game - a German Lara Croft with a twinge of Tank Girl. In one street scene Lola runs past posters with symbols familiar to PSX players eg. the turbo boost arrows from Wipeout "<<<"
Below: Tom Tykwer on location
Electronic music (composed by director Tykwer's band) drives the film, allowing the repetitive shots of Lola running around Berlin to maintain their energy. The soundtrack is the heart of the film, with one beautiful beautiful shot set to Dinah Washington's "What A Difference A Day Makes", last used in the stylistically similar Chungking Express. Unlike Sliding Doors or Hal Hartley's Flirt, Run Lola Run repeats itself with more verve and creativity, springing new surprises each time round, using rapid cross-cutting and tracking shots to good effect, building suspense and momentum. By varying the use of linkages RLR creates playful permutations both in the main action and the fate of each supporting character. In the first ending a woman with the baby is sent to jail for kidnapping, in the second she wins the lottery and is in the newspaper, in the third, she is converted and becomes a sidewalk evangelist. These branches are provided for each of the secondary characters, making the repetitions more colourful and involving. It's easy to be seduced by this film because it is so light and invigorating - the visual dominates the senses with exultant flashes of primary colour against Berlin grey, the endless blurring of scenery, the insertion of animations, fast and slow-motion footage. - it is an exhilarating ride, a virtual tour that has more shared pleasures with The Shoe than the snappy camerawork of I Stand Alone. Run Lola Run is all visceral thrills, spirited camerawork, enthusiastic filmmaking.
I wonder though, whether most festival goers would go to see a film like this if it wasn't in German and showing as part of the film festival. It is entertainment for the young, with electric beats, wild kinetics, guns and gangsters. However, it is not MTV-montaged so much as it is Playstation-preview. The editing language of the film is sophisticated, its structure is challenging and very involving - the fast cutting hooks the mind, and there is a total loss of self until the crowd laughs as one, stirring many a jaded filmbuff to feel guilty for being so absorbed in a red head sprinting down streets in a blue singlet. But even the most tired and discerning of audiences should have fun with RLR. To be disgruntled with the experience says more about the viewer than the film.
eugene chew
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adam rivett disagrees, calling the film "boring, desperately hip and almost completely devoid of content or point." find out why.
natalia laban liked the movie. read her review.
return to 1999 Sydney Film Festival index