Episode 18: Run Lola Run
Justin:
I know this isn’t necessarily saying much, but in my opinion, RUN LOLA RUN is the best video game movie ever despite, you know, not actually being an adaptation of a video game. It’s stylish, it’s fun, it’s weird, it’s loud… it’s just plain awesome. As previously mentioned, the creators of the Legend of Zelda actually used this theme of time rewinding in their game “Majora’s Mask.” And while that doesn’t mean this is explicitly a video game movie, I would argue that the events we see transpire and the way that Lola gets multiple cracks at this particular day is about as video gamey as you can get. Throw in the use of animation that shows her begin each “life” (post prologue, of course), the jump to a separate time altogether in order to collect thoughts when at death’s door, her glass-shattering super power scream, and the slight adjustments she makes each time she gets to do it all over, and her red hair and green pants might as well have had the letters M and L on them as she seemingly imitated a couple Italian plumber brothers. And yet, while there’s no Big Baddie at the end she has to defeat, she does get to claim victory in the end: it’s just that for Lola, it is in the form of a huge Roulette payday and getting to walk away from it all with the love she’s found in this life. And while some may balk at the way she gets there, I happen to be more than willing to overlook her use of Game Genie in order to get there.
Pete:
In 1960, John Luc Godard kicked off the French New Wave with his monumentally influential film, Breathless. Now, that’s a great movie in its own right, but if there’s any movie in the history of cinema that deserves that title, it’s Tom Twyker’s Run Lola Run. During its brief, 80 minute running time, where it quite literally races towards the finish, Run Lola Run is able to pause and catch its breath long enough to make its philosophical intentions clear – how much does what we do impact not just our lives, but the lives of those in our orbit? Can we bend the universe to our will, or are we at its mercy? I don’t know that the film clearly lies on one side of the debate or the other, but for an 80 minute movie to even be able to effectively ask those questions is something to admire alone.
Twyker’s movie is one of the most assured films I’ve ever seen. Confident in its ability to condense time and emotion cinematically in order to address these larger questions it's interested in. I think the movie ultimately settles on showing us that the intricacies and specifics we couldn’t ever possibly fully understand (both in the film and the world at large) are best left to the philosophers. The rest of us can just enjoy the ride. Here’s to hoping ours is even half as thrilling as Tom Twyker’s exhilarating Run Lola Run.
