Keep Running, Lola!

Among the variety of popular modern movies about young bandits one can still come across pleasant surprises, including, without doubt German director Tom Tykwer's Run, Lola, Run. First, because it is short, this being an advantage in the Titanic epoch. Second, because it is very dynamic and keeps the audience in suspense. The intriguing story is about a girl who has only 20 minutes to get $100,000 for her bandit friend. Third, it is daringly modern.

True, the latter causes calls forth unpleasant ambivalence. The first impression is that it is a film meant for and about the generation X. Lola has all the hallmarks: the story, video clip aesthetics, computer game ethics, but...

Actually, what is the main idea? The first thing that comes to mind is rather trivial. A girl makes three attempts to get the money. At this point the film turns into a typical computer game; the hero must accomplish something before the deadline. And as is the case with all computer games, death is part of the virtual reality. Enter Load and start over. Every step you take has several options, and all you have to do is to choose the right one. In the first attempt Lola runs but is too late and her desperate bandit friend robs a store but gets killed. In the second attempt Lola decides to ask her father, a banker, to give her the money and ends up robbing the bank. This time she gets killed. In third, final attempt she makes the right choice, asking God for help (many in the audience may miss this, for everything is done on the run). As a result, she wins at a casino and this brings the story to a happy ending.

No need for commentary, I think. For those interested in divine intervention (or ethical behavior) the whole story could look a parody like and an irony over the parody. Who needs this banal assertion of Lola's relatively correct choice (Lola should have realized from the beginning that the game's menu contained only one correct item: Ask for His help. She could have spared herself all the trouble)? Finally, who needs this obvious scorn of today's younger generation with no principles of its own, considering that they see no difference between robbing and praying? And this scorn actually extends to the authors of the game with their obviously false ideas about right and wrong. But perhaps the point is different. The film is interesting without doubt. It is also strong because, while trying to build a story about all those exniks, the older authors made a picture showing precisely how they view them. Result: nothing to offer except banalities mixed with acid irony. Moreover, in the end it transpires that there is no such thing as generation X, because people to whom functionality (e.g., finding the correct solution to a specific problem) is the main thing cannot be called a generation. Similarly, all the other multi-layered ironic constructions of the film appear empty, because this generation actually has nothing to feel ironic about (and this probably its most significant aspect). Here youth and its lack principle is not the point. It is just that this movie "about a generation" is additional evidence that, thank God, people striving to find their true face in any age group and call it a Generation have suffered final defeat. The times of generations are past. Enter the time of personalities. As for Lola, the film is about something else...