
Movie of the week:
RUN LOLA RUN
I do believe that this is the runningest movie ever. It is more runninger than “Marathon Man“. It is more runninger than “Chariots of Fire“. It is even more runninger than Arnold Schwarzeneggar’s “The Running Man“, and that was a pretty running movie.
The Plot: Lola runs. She has to. She just got a call from her boyfriend who has lost a big bag of mob money. He has just 20 minutes to find it or come up with more or they will surely kill him. Lola runs. She wants to help. She doesn’t know where she’s going or what she’s going to do. She’s literally thinking on the fly. She runs in real time, that is, the 20 minutes passes by in 20 minutes of viewing.
So right now you’re thinking, “this is a really short movie”. In 20 minutes, she will either save him or he’ll be dead, end of story. And in a sense, that’s right. The story lasts about 20 minutes (give or take). BUT, what the director does is interesting. He shows the same story over again, then he shows it a third time. Each time, something small changes at a critical point which alters the outcome. Have you ever just caught a bus and wondered what would have happened if you missed it? Ever wonder what if you’d arrived at that intersection a few seconds earlier? This movie explores just that.
So, put on your jogging suit and your sweat band and rent RUN LOLA RUN for a good workout.
Warnings:
- It’s in German with English subtitles (or Spanish subtitles, if you prefer. I don’t know – you might have your reasons).
- It’s damn running. It might even be too running for some viewers.
Enjoy.
[...] The film is twisted and macabre, it’s funny and frightening, it’s dark balanced with just the right amount of comic relief, and it’s always fascinating. It’s narrated by John Hurt (fast becoming my favorite narrator), who, by the way, reads lots of books. It takes chances and is NOT politically correct. The film has wanted to be made, apparently, for some time. Several high priced directors, who it seems, also read books, have been trying, without success, to get the movie right from the author. These include Ridley Scott, Tim Burton, Martin Scorsese, Milos Forman, and Stanley Kubrick (I would’ve loved to see the Kubrick version). Actual director, Tom Tykwer, is no slouch. He made one of my past recommendations Run, Lola, Run. [...]
[...] Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Perfume: The Story of a [...]