Run Lola Run: A quick review of the Tom Tykwer film starring Franka Potente

Run Lola Run: A quick review of the Tom Tykwer film starring Franka Potente

Run Lola Run is a 1998 German film written and directed by Tom Tykwer and stars Franka Potente and Moritz Bleibtreu. In a nutshell, the film consists of 3 identical episodes with completely different outcomes. In each of these episodes, Lola (Potente) has to come up with 100,000 Deutsche Marks in 20 minutes to cover a bag of mob money her boyfriend Manni (Bleibtreu) lost on a bus. If she can’t come up with the money in this short amount of time, he promises to rob a nearby grocery store. This is the trigger for all 3 episodes along with Lola running through the streets of Berlin with her red hair shooting up like a flame intercut with animation to a hard-driving techno soundtrack.

Existential themes of fate, death, reincarnation, and fortune are interwoven among the 3 episodes. Destiny is determined by everything, even the smallest of things such as bending down to tie a shoelace, or asking someone the time, or going back to get something you forgot, or that split-second hesitation at a stoplight that saves you from being killed. This is the overall idea of Run Lola Run, that everything in life happens for a reason and that the tiniest things can make the biggest impact on our lives.

Run Lola Run is the 1st foreign film I saw. I can remember renting the tape at a neighborhood Blockbuster store because of Lola's red hair on the box. If not for her hair, my tastes in films would still be in the dark ages. If you are looking for a fast-paced movie that gives your brain something to chew on, you don’t need to look any further. It’s a German language film but it also has an English dubbed track and it also has subtitles if you prefer hearing the actors’ real voices.

If you see this film and like it you might want to check out this directors’ other films such as The Princess and The Warrior and arguably his best film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer starring Dustin Hoffman, Ben Wishaw and the late Allan Rickman.