A Timely Blogathon – Run Lola Run (1998) – Epileptic Moondancer

This post is the next entry in this month’s A Timely Blogathon being run by Anna of Film Grimoire and myself.  This review of Run Lola Run (1998) by Jordan Deee of Epileptic Moondancer

Check out his site which is filled with movie reviews, personal stories, photography, music and lots of other fun stuff!

Tnx for taking part Jordan!

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RUN LOLA RUN (1998)

There are so many ways to interpret this film. Add to that a consistent feeling of extreme tension,  equally frenzied cinematography and a thumping German electronic soundtrack, and you have yourself quite the film, which is barely over in 75 minutes.

The premise is simple, Lola needs to get 100,000 marks that her boyfriend has misplaced. What follows is three sequences of the same goal, all transpiring in different ways and ending very differently. This gives it a strange sensation: as you watch the second and third sequences, it is thrilling to see what will be different, and what won’t be. How will she get 100,00 marks? How can this story play out in any way that isn’t terrible?

During these sequences, after some people Lola meets on her run to Manni, a series of photos flickers, showing the rest of the life of that person. It is an extremely effective technique and played a little havoc with my epilepsy methinks! It also adds to my theory, my interpretation of the film. These characters are shown three times, and in each sequences the rest of their life sometimes differs. Which plays into what I’m going to say next.

Given the differences in the sequences, and especially the opening quote, which includes the gem: “Where are we going? How do we know what we think we know? Why do we believe anything at all?”, I feel this is a movie about fate, or more precisely, the complete lack of it. It is about making your own future. It is about being in the moment and creating your own fate. And that is what happens as we see that in the three different sequences, different decisions lead to different conclusions. Given there are three of these sequences, I think it is saying that nothing is finite, and anything can happen.

But that’s just me.