Cinema: Mr. Tykwer, would you still shoot “Run Lola Run” like this today?

Lola’s friend is calling from a telephone booth because he has lost 100,000 marks, which actually belong to Ronnie the car smuggler. The crook wants to see the coal right away, otherwise Manni is in danger of being dumped. Lola’s lover begs “Help me” or else he’ll rob a supermarket at twelve sharp. “You wait,” Lola shouts resolutely and runs. Get the money, save your love in just 20 minutes.

That – rapidly told in three variants – is the plot of “Run Lola”. Tom Tykwer’s work with a lot of speed and techno became a cult film 25 years ago (theatrical release was in August 1998), also impressed Hollywood and shaped the global image of cool Berlin.

From another century

But 25 years later, the experimental film, despite its modern appearance, is literally from another century and has actually fallen out of time.

Deutschmark? phone booth? The whole drama of “Run Lola Run” is tied to the 90s. Today Manni would not have had to look for a phone booth to describe his dilemma to Lola. He probably would have called or texted her on his cell phone much earlier.

And probably none of this would have happened because he would not have taken the subway with so much sensitive money in his bag, where he lost the sum, but would have ordered a taxi via the app.

Before the invention of the smartphone

“A large part of the films from the last century would have to be retold because of the invention of the smartphone – if only the story were important,” says director Tom Tykwer. But it doesn’t depend on whether a film ages well or badly. “Good films do not draw their strength from the plot alone, but from the beauty of their construction, a certain atmosphere, an energy, sometimes also an extraordinary performance.”

Filmmaker and cineast Tykwer (58) explains: “The most important films are like confidants or friends who accompany us through life. Some we lose sight of over the years and suddenly they have nothing more to say to us. To others we think there’s always a connection. And every once in a while you rediscover gems from the past and fall in love all over again.”

Tykwer: Don’t watch my own films

The director (“Cloud Atlas”, “Drei”) admits: “I actually never look at my own films again once I’ve left them behind.” For the anniversary of “Run Lola Run” he took a new look at it. “I thought he was pretty fresh for his age. ‘How did we do that?’ I thought. And I thought, I was really a different guy back then, I couldn’t do a film like that now. That was an interesting feeling .”

When it comes to “Run Lola Run”, some Berlin connoisseurs are still upset about Lola’s running route, because it is by no means possible to run it in the stated time. For example, you can see the Oberbaum Bridge over the Spree between Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain. The supermarket, on the other hand, is a former Bolle supermarket in Charlottenburg, about eleven kilometers away.

“Movie Mistakes Are So Beautiful”

Tykwer only says calmly: “Film mistakes are so beautiful, I love them. They remind you in such a friendly way that it’s not about perfection. Life isn’t perfect either, so why should it be art? The main thing is truthful. “

Tykwer is one of the authors and directors of the crime television series “Babylon Berlin” (fourth season from September 29 in the ARD media library, on TV from October 1). He is currently working on a feature film for the first time since A Hologram for the King (2016). In it, Lars Eidinger and Nicolette Krebitz play a couple whose family finds a new identity when they take on a Syrian immigrant as housekeeper.

Tykwer, who was born in Wuppertal, hasn’t lost his enthusiasm for the German capital: “We just searched the whole city for locations for my new film Das Licht. And my impression was: Berlin will remain as it always was – chaotic and dreamlike , ugly and beautiful. Never done. Great.”