Foreign Film Friday: Run Lola Run

Day 22

Run Lola Run (1998)

This German film is another one of my favorite foreign films, and one that I recently watched again. It is awesome, exciting and clever; and at 88 minutes in length it is a quick view (in the way that some books are a quick read)!

The plot concerns a young woman with bright red hair (and no, her name is NOT Annie!) named Lola (hence the title) who gets a call from her boyfriend Manni. He is in a major bind, because he has lost $100,000 that he is supposed to hand over to his gangster boss in 20 minutes! He begs Lola to help him and meet up with him, and so she hangs up the phone and…runs to find help (hence the title)!

And she runs and runs and runs. She runs to the bank where her father works and tries to borrow money, but she is pushed away and kicked out of the bank. Meanwhile, Manni decides to rob a nearby store if Lola doesn’t show up in the next 20 minutes. Lola arrives just as Manni enters the store and begins to rob it. Lola ends up helping with the robbery and then the couple leaves, just as the police surround them outside. Manni tosses the bag of money in the air, a policeman is distracted and accidentally shoots…Lola!

But wait…suddenly we’re back to the earlier scene where Lola is talking to Manni on the phone. She hangs up the phone and runs. Again.

And that’s one reason why I love this movie; it is similar to another favorite movie of mine, Groundhog Day, where the main character keeps repeating the same day, and each time the character tries to rectify/change/alter events with the hope of a different outcome.

Lola is played by Franke Potente (who portrayed Matt Damon’s girlfriend in The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy) and she is amazing! She does her own running--no stand-in for her! Her character is brave, relentless, determined and utterly in love with and devoted to her boyfriend.

The soundtrack is full of loud, pulsating techno pop music that, funnily enough, is in English and keeps the action going. There are scenes of animation, scenes with a split screen, and a clever sequence of showing the future events for other characters that Lola comes in contact with as she runs.

I highly recommend this movie for anyone who likes action, Germans, techno music, lots of running and Groundhog Day. Go on and run out and rent it! (Oooh, bad joke there! Sorry!)