After catching "Perfume," I was intrigued enough by Tom Tykwer's kinetic sense of filming and decided to check out this earlier piece. "Run Lola Run" features the same the jump-cutting transitions and quick, fluid camerawork that was present in "Perfume," but on steroids. The throbbing techno score, snappy editing and the constant movement of the film's star Franka Potente (yeah, that's it...run some more) produces almost a sense of fatigue as you watch it. And while it may by physically wearing visually, the abstract sense of time and storytelling is mentally exhausting as well. When critics classify a film as a "thrill ride," this is the experience I expect. Most big, summer blockbusters labeled as such find me glancing at my watch while viewing the film, an action I didn't find myself performing the last time I was riding Millennium Force at Cedar Point.
The manic storyline centers around Lola's (Potente) repeated attempts to raise 100,000 Deutschmarks in twenty minutes to save her screw-up boyfriend from murderous drug dealers. If she fails, we just winds back the clock and off she goes again. Each attempt plays out differently because her exit from her apartment building varies by a few seconds each time - creating "alternate realities" for each run for the money. The "butterfly effect" of a two second difference parlays into a world of variation as twenty minutes progresses. I suppose a poor analogy could be drawn to "Sliders"...no...but wait! What if the film was remade with a star from "Sliders?" Instead of Franka, out sprinting savior was...
...yes, John Rhys-Davies. If only Denholm Elliott were still alive. His Marcus-Brody-a-la-Indiana-Jones-and-the-Last-Crusade bungling would certainly explain the loss of the package of drug money at the beginning...and his poor attempt at robbing a supermarket to try and raise the loot. Yes...okay, I'm restarting this review. Back up the clock twenty minutes to when I began...
After catching "Perfume," I was intrigued enough by Tom Tykwer's kinetic sense of filming and decided to check out this earlier piece. "Run Lola Run" features the same the jump-cutting transitions and quick, fluid camerawork that was present in "Perfume," but on steroids. It feels very much like an elaborate music video, and I was surprised to learn (as best as my research revealed) that Tykwer didn't get his start in directing music videos. Other directors whose early work premiered on MTV rather than in theatres, such as Spike Jonze and Mark Romanek, seem to have the opposite influence on their films. "One Hour Photo" and "Being John Malkovich" are scarcely conventional and are filled with amazing visuals, but they lack the vigor and energy that "Run Lola Run" effortlessly exudes. In short, the film is a mile-a-minute thrill ride, slowed only be its absence of John Rhys-Davies...wait...
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