Sony Pictures
Run Lola Run celebrates the 25th anniversary of its original release with a new 4k restoration. For me, it is the first time viewing a film that I have heard so much about from my cinephile friends.
It did not disappoint.
Run Lola Run is a culmination of 1990’s independent film.
Released in 1998, German writer/director Tom Twyker puts into play all the tricks of the trade gleaned from greats like Krzysztof Kieslowski (Three Color Trilogy) to Wong Kar-Wai (Chungking Express).
Don’t look away from your screen even for a moment to check IMDB or answer that text because Twyker’s Run Lola Run is 90 plus minutes of frenetic storytelling where you can miss vital pieces of the story in the blink of an eye.
In a modern fairy tale of fated love, Lola’s boyfriend Manni botches a pickup job for a Russian mobster. Lola has 20 minutes to get her hands on 100,000 Deutschmarks (German money in the pre-Euro days) and get the money to Manni before he gives up and decides to rob a supermarket out of desperation.
As Lola runs to save Manni’s life, she touches many lives, quite literally.
Each of Lola’s interactions changes the course of the people’s lives she meets, a tiny pebble that creates a life-altering ripple. When Lola fails to make it to Manni with the money in time an unexpected outcome causes a repeating loop.
From Manni’s original frantic call to her for help to Lola’s final arrival at the store, a series of variant outcomes unfold.
Franka Potente’s (The Bourne Identity) Lola checks all the boxes for the Art House heroine.
From her iconic red dyed hair to her pre-Hot Topic Alt-Girl attire, Lola is the punk girl every 90s kid wanted to be or date. Lola’s drive to help save Manni is relentless in a tunnel-visioned way that only young love can describe. It’s careless and single-minded. Lola plows through Berlin begging, threatening, and stealing. She ultimately puts everything on the line for luck/fate.
Her frantic run through Berlin is a simple story, but the visual storytelling is anything but. The craft of the film is its own character. Tom Twyker and his team pull out all the stops. Twyker’s cinematographer Frank Griebe (Cloud Atlas) seems to have no rules. It feels like guerilla filmmaking on a larger budget. There is no one set of techniques he uses to tell the story. Twyker and Griebe use both film and video, one to show the past and the other the present day. The camera will go from tracking its subject on the street to being outpaced by Lola. The next shot is never what you expect.
Editor Mathilde Bonnefoy (The Princess and the Warrior) molds the story with her pacing. The energy of Lola’s run is amped with a multitude of cuts (jump cuts, wipes, passing cuts, match cuts) all in a single sequence of scenes, challenging the viewer to process information as fast as Lola. The people Lola knocks into in the streets have their whole future outcomes displayed in lightning-fast cuts of single photos revealing how the insignificant interaction changed their trajectory.
And because writing and directing the film wasn’t enough, for that extra sprinkle of creative control Tom Twyker also composed the techno soundtrack for the film. This is his baby through and through.
Seeing Run Lola Run for the first time 25 years after the film’s release is an interesting exercise. It’s easy to see where filmmakers have been influenced or straight-up pulled from the film over the years. Filmmaking that was revolutionary at the time has become commonplace and in some ways now looks dated. However, looking at it through the 1998’s lens, it was edgy and groundbreaking.
Extras include two audio commentaries, featurettes, trailer, and music video.
If you have never seen Run Lola Run, add the new restoration to your watch list.
If it is a long-time favorite, give your old friend a visit.
It will always be worth it.
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