Take Life By The Horns: Run Lola Run Movie Review
Every second of every day you’re faced with a decision that can change your life.
Lola receives a frantic phone call from her boyfriend Manni through a payphone. Manni lost the bag of 100,000 DM (Deutsche Mark) on a subway train to a homeless man. Losing the money could very well mean certain death for at least one of them. Lola has 20 minutes to raise 100,000 DM and meet Manni at the payphone. Otherwise, Manni will rob a nearby grocery store to raise the funds for his safety.
The film is split up into a prologue, intro, three acts, and two interludes. The endings to each of the three acts are determined by the choices Lola makes and are independent of each other. However, the end goal always remains the same, get the money to Manni in under twenty minutes and save his life. Run Lola Run!
Quick Background On The Film
Run Lola Run is characterized as an action/drama that is directed by Tom Tyker and was released in Germany in 1998. Eventually the film was distributed onto the worldwide stage and into the west due to its critical acclaim and popularity.
The film’s leading actor Franka Potente, an amateur 23-year-old yet to stake her claim on the acting scene, was a risk but one very well taken. Franka later went on to win the BAMBI Award for best young actress. In its entirety, the film won 28 awards and was nominated for 21 around the globe.
It’s Almost Like A Video Game
Recently, most of the movies I have seen have had a slow build up and require you to dampen your angst and impatience to fully get immersed in the viewing. While that’s great and allows for time to build emotional rapport with the characters, it’s also refreshing when a film jumps you right in.
And Run Lola Run does just that. An absolute adrenaline pumper front to back.
This movie is all about the second-to-second decisions and how they add up to shape your year-to-year experiences. How the smaller picture fits right into the bigger picture, even if we don’t notice until the end.
The film plays like a video game level that you need to replay for different decisions and different outcomes. As the film progresses, it’s as if Lola is almost resetting her save file once she gets the wrong ending. Each act is Lola starting anew and working a different route to make progress towards her goal. The shots and cinematography are akin to a third-person camera angle. Always on the move and changing angles as if it is being controlled by a player.
Another aspect that I thought helped to reinforce the video game feel was the prologue and intro. A seemingly ambiguous and directionless prologue that sets the themes in motion fits right into any early 2000’s action RPG game like Assassin’s Creed II or Borderlands. Something that you would watch on your way to the main title screen.
Along with that, Lola really felt like the main character. The world around her revolved around her and her decisions. It was impressionable of what Lola decided to do. Like a video game, you are the maker of the environment since you are playing as the main person. The people, the cars, the stores, the city, all moved with Lola, either with or against and felt her presence.
* Side note
I don’t know if this is a reach, but I feel I could make the case that Run Lola Run shares some thematic semblance to Mirrors Edge.
For context, Mirrors Edge is still worshiped and acclaimed as one of the most innovative and influential video game titles of the early 2000’s. An absolute one of its kind in the video game space, Mirrors Edge was a story about rebellion, liberation, and freedom against the powers that hold us down. It was the first game to use the first person in the platformer genre. There has not been a game since that has replicated the magic of the experience.
But back to Lola.
Although not in artistic style, world building, or plot, there are still some base themes that both stories share. Themes like running = freedom, family holding us back, and being against the system or an outsider. As well as the fact that both stories are driven by a female protagonist out wanting to change fate. Both are very stylized and are iconic in how they look, etc. I won’t go too deep about it, but I just wanted to throw that out there. But if you get anything from this part, it should be to play Mirrors Edge. My god what an amazing game. *
Themes + My Two Favorite Scenes
“The ball is round. The game lasts 90 minutes. That’s a fact. Everything else is pure theory.”
This simple quote from the prologue about the game of football (soccer), I feel greatly captures one of the beautiful aspects of Run Lola Run.
Like the game of soccer, we know the facts and the premise. Theres a ball. A goal. 11 players vs 11 players and one team needs to score more than the other team to win.
For Lola and her situation of saving Manni, we know what the solution is; how she can win the game.
But how it unfolds; how it happens is up to Lola. Everything else in between the start and the end is our turn at the wheel and which way we want to turn it. It is up to us and our selection from the action wheel to affect outcomes. But once the time limit is up, it is either a win or a loss.
This simple premise is one of wonderful aspects that really help separate Run Lola Run from other action movies. While yes, a simple plot point and end goal isn’t anything new, what this film does from the rest, is it gives us the chance to watch multiple outcomes of the same plot. Heighten the suspense, investment, and immersion of the viewer. Keeps you on your toes and makes you wait to see what Lola will do differently this time to get to the end.
No time to think.
Lola chooses to be present in the moment and does not ponder on her decisions but instead dives into them. She is hyper focused on only the next 20 minutes of her life. Living in only the moment-to-moment interactions and not for a second thinking about how this impacts this or that.
It is this sort of decision making that is in direct opposition to overthinking and it does not allow the viewer to do so either. The only parts of the film that involve the future are the quick bursts of shots that show how the future of one of the affected civilians turned out, but it is done so extremely quickly. You know almost nothing about these people and have no emotional connection to them. Even though we are given their names, we are not given time with them, so we do not humanize them all that much, at least I didn’t.
It is brilliantly executed.
The Casino Scene
There is a part in the last act of the film where Lola enters a Casino to try and win the 100,000 DM through chance. The Casino scaptures a couple of different themes and is a brillaint solution to the last act.
In the previous two acts, Lola relied on others to fix her issues, on outside help and solutions. Going into the Casino was Lola’s first solution that involved nothing but herself. Lola was running away from the issue she caused. Manni was only in this bind because she was late on picking him up and in turn making him take the train. The casino scene is Lola’s first time taking true responsibility for her mistake and putting herself on the line to lose it all.
As the ball spins, Lola has nothing and absolutely everything to lose. If she wins the money everything is saved but if she loses then things are over, like they were supposed to be anyways. Lola’s high-pitched scream while the roulette ball spins a second time is an act of pure desperation to change her destiny. As the ball lands on her number and Lola gets the money, the whole room is watching her. I think without the scream, the scene would have felt a little bit anti-climactic. The scene ends with the whole room of people surrounding Lola, in awe of a woman who willed chance to her advantage.
I think the casino scene is a message to the viewers that you just need to give yourself a chance. No matter how small the odds in your favor are, if you have relentless willpower and determination, it will come true. Bet on yourself and don’t grow complacent. Double down on your luck and back yourself to come out.
The Casino scene also helps to give a physical setting to a theme.
The theme of taking the chance, the gamble; running the risk (pun intended). The world around us is filled with many daily gambles that we don’t even know about. To live life and view the world as a daily gamble, as a rolling of the dice can help to make us feel more alive. Help to instill feelings of freedom. That we are at the helm of our reality. We as individuals can work in tandem with fate and not for it.
That’s what I loved most about the Casino scene. That I can change my world if I just want it bad enough.
Interlude Scene
As stated before, Run Lola Run has three acts. These interludes are played right after Act 1 and Act 2. These scenes slow down the movie. Giving time for the viewer to process what just happened in the act before. A breather in Run Lola Run is always welcome.
The scenes are flooded with a dark red light, and the camera never moves. Simply close headshots. These scenes have tension, cute conflict, and are very in touch and human. I saw these scenes as sort of a loading screen, in the video game sense, or as a bridge before the next verse unfolds.
“Do you love me?”
“What would you do if I died?”
“Would you forget about me?”
These common and silly relationship questions don’t really have any real answers. As they are not based on immediate reality and both partners can only try their best to console the other.
However, in this situation, they serve as a backdrop. We are given live results in the act. What would they do for one another in a do or die scenario. These questions have real implications as we are literally watching what they are talking about. Their lives are truly on the line during the present moments.
One of the magic bits of the film is that as viewers, we know that what Lola is doing for Manni comes straight from the heart. She could of easily just left him to die. But what is baked into this high action German thriller is a great message about one of the many parts that makes up love; fully living and dying for each other.
Also, a cool signifier for whoever has control in the conversation is who is holding the cigarette. They are the ones navigating the conversation and bringing the answers. Just a cool thing that I noticed. The smoke from the cigarette also serves as a transition between in and out, a great use of the same physical prop in multiple ways.
My favorite response is when she asks why he loves her and he says, “I don’t know. I just am”.
It doesn’t get more human than that.
Soundtrack
Now. There wouldn’t be a bluegoose movie review without covering the music.
The soundtrack of Run Lola Run is absolutely banging and does not disappoint in the slightest. The music is a direct sonic representation of what the film brings front to back. The soundtrack to Run Lola Run is just as important to the visual one playing out before you.
Industrial, rugged, electronic, repetitive, addictive, gothic, with breakbeat and techno all infused into it. A soundtrack that sounds like it could belong in an early Valve Entertainment title like Half-life or Portal. What we see is enhanced by what we hear. It is wonderfully built into the viewing experience and gives a sonic foundation that is essential.
Conclusion
Overall, I think Run Lola Run is one of the most fun and exciting viewing experiences I have had. You find yourself immersed and quickly invested in the story in front of you. Finding a film, you can escape in is a rare find. Especially one that you can mentally dive into from the opening minutes. You are cheering for her from the jump.
It was funny because not even for a second did I think wait, what they are doing is illegal and they should probably go to jail. Also, because it’s just a movie bro, have fun.
If you are still reading this, I really appreciate it. This is my first ever movie review officially written and fleshed out. I had a lot of fun writing it. I think the one I am going to do next is A Taste of Tea (2004). One of my favorite Japanese films ever.
Again, I appreciate anyone who came to check this out and I hope you give Run Lola Run a watch when you get the chance.
Thank you!
Score/Rating?
I don’t think I’m going to do movie scores. I feel it’s not fair to the movie. If you like it you do, if you don’t then you don’t you know. But I might if I find a cool way to rate films that isn’t just a star system or number rating.