Cinema
Lola Rennt (1998)
Lola Rennt (english title Run Lola Run“)12 is a 1998 german fast-paced post-modernist thriller, directed by Tom Tykwer.
The main plot device is not new – it’s existed for as long as the people have wished they could relive their lives. The most likely influence for the movie, just as for Groundhog Day, was Ken Grimwood’s 1987 novel Replay, and many visual ideas built on those by Krzysztof Kieślowski — check out Blind Chance and The Double Life of Véronique when you have a chance. Replay is rich in complex philosophical undertones, which Lola Rennt attempts to reimagine and show in its own way. Many reviewers delve into the wide variety of visual techniques and lose themselves in it. You can find color and black-and-white scenes, scenes shot on a hand-held videocamera and on 35mm film, slow and fast motion, split screens, jump cuts, et cetera. All this technical coding and a fast-paced techno soundtrack adds on to complex chromatic coding of themes and characters: the color red marks everything related to fate, life, and death, everything from the heroine’s hair to the bicycle thief’s shirt. The contrast of black and white appears to highlight the obstacles, from the nuns to the crashing cars to the moped driver in the end. The color gold follows the money and wealth, although sometimes subtly. Another color contrast, green and white, follows Lola as well – from the letters on her clock to her ring, to even the background of a scene with her in the end of the first run.
There are many other visual symbols in the movie: clocks, falling dominoes, breaking glass, spirals, but all this only comes to mind of the people interested in disassembling works of art into their components. This is not the way to view it, as I say on this website, art exists to be experienced directly, with no rationalization. Only then the understanding of causality and choice that this movie brings to the viewer can be perceived rather than deduced.
This may not be the most influential work of cinematography, but it certainly is notable, and is my personal favorite movie.