Run Lola Run

07 avril 1999
01m 40s
Ref. 00267

Information

Summary :

Presentation and excerpts from the film Run Lola Run, commented by German film-maker Volker Schlöndorff. This fast-paced film breaks traditional film rules by mixing three different plots, allowing the spectator to choose the development of the plot. Berlin is the main character of the film.

Media type :
Broadcast date :
07 avril 1999
Source :
A2 (Collection: Midi 2 )
Themes :
Places :

Context

An unexpected national success in the German cinema in 1998 - 2 million tickets sold - Run, Lola, Run (Lola rennt) by Tom Tykwer, who was self-taught, born in 1965 and future director of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer in 2006, at first seems to be a fashion film, influenced by the aesthetics of his time. With Techno music, co-written by the director, matching the shocking filming, as frenetic as the race of the young heroine with red hair, which put images of a different nature back-to-back: traditional shots, photos, animated sequences, and video takes.

It's in the structure of the film that it's true originality resides as Tykwer, the scriptwriter, juxtaposes three variations of the same plot. If this principle evokes Blind Chance by Krzysztof Kieslowski (1987) or Smoking/No Smoking by Alain Resnais (1983), it would be more the video game which is called into play.

But this composite film marks above all the historical return of German cinema to the front of the stage, which will soon strengthen the Good Bye Lenin! of Wolfgang Becker (2003).

Thierry Méranger

Transcription

Rachid Arhab
We're starting off by talking about a German film of a very peculiar sort. It's called "Run Lola Run". It's a film where the viewer can choose the development of the plot himself, and even the end of the story. Our German correspondent, Olivier Lerner, explains, Olivier, who screened the film for director Volker Schlöndorff.
Olivier Lerner
Camera movements which leave you breathless. Volker Schlöndorff's eye observes this race against time, a race against death that's based on three different scenarios which only have one thing in common: Lola always runs.
Volker Schlöndorff
She runs in an - how should I say it - epidermic way. We feel her, we also smell her sweat. I mean, it's not a spirited race like we see in advertisements but it's a very authentic race and kind of like a race through this Berlin which is being built.
Olivier Lerner
Traditional cinema rules are being thrown out the window: techno music, video clips. The story takes place in secondary scenes. We stay hooked to Lola's feet and voice for 1 hour and 20 minutes. This crazy race though the streets of Berlin, a capital that becomes torn apart after the passage of Lola, the lost adolescent, is all about youth that is sought, that runs from one place to another while all around us, Berlin is changing.
Volker Schlöndorff
Berlin is the second character of the film, maybe even the primary one. It's therefore a film form Berlin, and German cinema, I mean, from the great era was always Berlin cinema.
Olivier Lerner
She runs to save the one that she loves and makes us follow her from Prussian Berlin, the old city, to East Berlin, defeated, up to West Berlin, the Berlin of the new money where Lola doesn't go unnoticed.