"Run Lola Run" is an interesting film
from Germany. It does much to reinforce the stereotypes I harbor
about German people, with it's driving techno soundtrack, avant-garde
film editing, somewhat robotic acting and even a very brief nod
to S & M. But the premise of the movie is perhaps the most
germanic part of all; it's something that requires a certain zeal
for precision in order to successfully convey in a motion picture.
The film pivots around Lola, a striking young red-haired woman who has 20 minutes to find 100 000 marks and deliver them to save her boyfriend from certain death. You get three different scenarios, wherein half a second's delay in Lola's initial departure causes radically different outcomes, not only for Lola and her boyfriend, but for everyone Lola passes on her frantic errand. It's kind of a sexy, kinetic play on the old notion that the flap of a butterfly's wing in China triggers a series of events that lead to an avalanche in Peru.
The film certainly moves along quickly enough, and might give you some food for though about how all of our lives are built (and sometimes destroyed) on coincidences that sometimes align themselves through the briefest of time windows.