Lola rennt (1998)

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Vance-11

Date: 28 March 2000
Summary: An incomparable jolt of brilliant electricity

Never before have I spent an entire film (less than 90 minutes though it is) with chills going down my spine. Tom Tykwer's "Lola Rennt" is unlike anything you've seen before -- it brings that briefly popular "Choose Your Own Adventure" phenomenon to the movies, with the kind of brilliant originality that's downright invigorating.

First: don't be scared off by the fact that it's German with subtitles. Dialogue is secondary to intense rave music and sheer wordless panic as Lola, a stunning redhead punk, runs through the city streets over a breathless 20 minutes as she tries to scrape up the equivalent of $20,000. Manni, her boyfriend, fresh off a drug transaction, bolts off a train when he sees a policeman board, strictly out of habit. The policeman, of course, isn't looking for him, and as a result of his knee-jerk reaction, Manni leaves the sack of cash behind on the seat next to him. He's supposed to present the sack to his boss in 20 minutes, and it's doubtful his boss will understand -- the last time Manni messed up (he skimmed a carton of cigarettes), the boss left him on the floor after a brutal head-butt.

Lola vows to help him out of the situation, as well she should -- Manni only took the train in the first place because Lola failed to show up in her car to pick him up. While that was the result of car problems rather than a faulty memory, all that matters now is that she must find $20,000 before the boss turns Manni into a grease spot.

What follows are delirious tellings of what Lola's frenzied mind conjures as ideas to get the money. She's without a car, so in each scene, she sprints, past the same faces each time, a few seconds early once, a few seconds late the next time. These moments make all the difference. Without giving anything away, really, Lola doesn't get it right the first two times -- and the third looks doubtful as well. All the while, she's propelled by the most energetic and electric rave music imaginable, which makes for a palpable sense of tension.

Tykwer has made one of the most visually fascinating movies in years. Not only is his editing and camerawork interesting, but he employs a device I've never seen before: as Lola passes people on the street, he allows himself a momentary diversion to flash forward in those peoples lives. With the words "And then" on screen, he kicks off a flurry of still photographs of the person's next few weeks, months, even years, which involve both perverse death and odd levity. Like everything else in this masterpiece, the device is brilliant.

I doubt this movie toes the line enough to have been considered as Germany's entrant into the Best Foreign Film Oscar category, and I have not yet seen "All About My Mother." But this was not only the best foreign film of 1999, it may well have been the best film overall.

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