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Run Lola Run (DVD)
Franka Potente, Director Tom Tykwer

One of an occasional series of DVD reviews

This is a stunning German film.

The story is simple and spans a period of only twenty minutes. Lola has to raise 100,000 marks or her boyfriend will die, and the film tells the story of those twenty minutes through three different storylines. Each reflects the effects of slight changes, moments of delay, minor deviations, alternate choices and each plays out the effects these have on the future. We see how the future is written and rewritten by a glance,  a moments hesitation, and act of chance connection or disconnection. Three stories are told, but we glimpse the infinity of stories that could and are taking place in every moment and the chain of interconnections that mean that each change changes everything..

The film style matches the frenetic intensity of the impending deadline. The music and cinematic style create an energy such that the viewer doesn’t simply view but experiences the heart pounding exhaustion of the race against time.

It is a film that lays before you the immensity of opportunity that exists in every one of our moments, if only we are alive to see them.

I found the name of this film scribbled on the back of a piece of paper deep in a jacket pocket. How long it lay there and quite what made it surface and not be discarded is of course the story of the film. I thank whoever it was that gave me the note and heartily pass on their recommendation that you must see this film.

Steve Unwin
November 2008

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