This was one of many times when I was totally unprepared for a movie. The only thing I knew about Run Lola Run going in is that it was a 20-minute story with an 80-minute running time. I was expecting such a movie to be very creative and fast-paced. I was not expecting it to be this completely bugfuck insane.
Let’s take it from the top. The premise of Run Lola Run begins when a small-time criminal named Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) misplaces 100,000 marks due to be delivered in twenty minutes (by the way, did I mention that this is a German film?). If Manni doesn’t recover the money or find another hundred grand somewhere else in time for the delivery, his bosses will make him disappear. With no one else to turn to, Manni calls his girlfriend, the eponymous Lola (Franka Potente). Fortunately, Lola’s estranged father (Herbert Knaup) just happens to be a rich asshole who owns a bank. So our heroine runs off in an attempt to pry the money from her dad and get the cash to Manni, all before the twenty minutes run out.
There are several ways that the 20-minute story is stretched out into a feature-length film. Easily the most important is that the film is actually divided into three movies, each one depicting an alternate timeline. They all start in the same place and cover the same 20-minute window, but with the following differences:
- Lola leaves her apartment as usual.
- Lola’s departure is delayed by a few seconds.
- Lola gets a small head start out the door.
And so, we get to witness how events unfold differently in each timeline, with every difference stemming from the single change made at the start of each story (anyone who’s seen the “Remedial Chaos Theory” episode in season 3 of “Community” will already be very familiar with the concept).
This leads me to another way that the film pads out its runtime: By following the side characters as well. There are several people that Lola runs into (often quite literally) in all three of the timelines. Sometimes the camera continues to follow the side characters about their day, and sometimes their futures are conveyed by fast-paced photo slideshows. Yet in every case, their fates unfold in very different ways depending on when Lola crosses their paths.
One of the movie’s most central themes is in how interconnected we are as a species. A great deal of time and effort is spent to show how the lives of these characters (and by implication, non-fiction lives of the audience as well) can be changed in such huge and unpredictable ways by the tiniest change in one person’s course. Naturally, the film’s story and structure also lend themselves to ruminations on fate and the subjective nature of reality.
But make no mistake: In spite of the foreign-language dialogue, the heady thematic material, and the liberal use of visual motifs (just try to count all the times that spirals and clocks show up onscreen), this is no pretentious arthouse flick. Remember, it’s still a movie about a woman running as fast as she can to score a small fortune by any means necessary so that her criminal boyfriend won’t get gunned down.
There is a lot of action in this movie, and the strict time limit keeps things moving at a tense breakneck pace. Yet more than that, writer/director Tom Tykwer constructed the film in such a way that he’s clearly either a genius or a madman. The editing in this movie is energetic and extremely creative. The techno soundtrack lends the film even more energy, in addition to a distinctly punk sort of feel.
I absolutely get that this movie is superb on a technical level. Yet Tykwer also included some stylistic touches to this movie that I just don’t get at all. The title sequence, for example, presents a statement about soccer with the implication that it’s the ultimate question and answer to all of life. And the storyline has absolutely nothing to do with soccer. Either something was lost in translation there, or the director really was daffy enough to put that in there.
Then there’s the matter of the animated segments. Seriously, there are several animated scenes throughout the film, usually to introduce each of the timelines. I have absolutely no idea why these scenes were animated instead of filmed in live-action, nor do I know why the scenes were drawn and animated without any attempt at photo-realism.
And also, Lola’s screams apparently have magic powers. I don’t know how or why, but that’s the only explanation I’ve got for all the things that happen when she starts screaming.
At the end of the day, Run Lola Run is proof positive that the line between insanity and brilliance is a thin one indeed. The premise is wonderfully original, executed with a very clever structure, technical excellence on every level, and a baffling amount of creativity. The film also conveys a huge amount of thematic content and character development, but never at the expense of the fast-paced action.
I’m willing to bet that I could see this movie a dozen times and find something new with each viewing. HIGHLY recommended.