The notions of free will, personal agency and the roads not travelled both literally and metaphorically have taken more precedence in my thoughts than usual lately.

Whilst this has mostly been due to infernal overlaps in my schedule between planned social hang-outs and impromptu COVID scares (both of which turned out to be false alarms, thankfully), it has also encouraged my mind to plunder more existentially-cavernous potholes regarding career paths and relationships, every so often shaking my confidence enough that despite all my efforts in trying to keep up with everything that I may not actually be “life-ing” properly. Most certainly this has been enhanced by all the insidious mindfuckery informed by the playground of consumerism-as-perceived-happiness that is social media (of which you can ironically include this review series as an example of, really), not to mention the fact that the continuous conflation of catastrophe and corruption from the world outside has also done well to make me feel more inconsequential and isolated than I should. The latter facet has even managed to taint my enjoyment of that most joyous of sporting events, the Summer Olympics, which despite the pandemic still went ahead and was thus plastered all over my media receptors featuring all manner of driven athletes competing for glory even despite such ghastliness like their mental health being questioned by pundits and their own countries trying to kidnap them.

Likely inspired by all of the spandex-clad nubility on display, the nostalgia pendulum has swung particularly hard towards more fast-paced media of my youth as a result, which has principally involved watching lots of retrospective video essays and speed-runs of Sonic The Hedgehog, what with the original game hitting its thirtieth birthday this year (yup, officially old now!) And so, dovetailing somewhat neatly into my feverish want to shake off my stultifying social inertia and my “what if” navel-gazing in the name of appropriately-themed content, here’s an attempt to wax lyrical about the soundtrack to one of the more formative movies of my teenage years…

VINYLLY!!

#8: Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt: Der Soundtrack Zum Film) by Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer (1998, Sony Music Entertainment Germany GmbH/Bella Union/bella569V)

Spotify / Apple

Sometimes the best gifts to yourself are the least expected ones, and happening upon this reissue of the soundtrack to director Tom Tykwer’s high-concept love-story/crime-caper was probably the first time I experienced such a genuine frisson whilst leafing through the vinyl sleeves at Casbah Records since actually owning a record player. The film itself represented a lot of ‘firsts’ for me already though, being both the first non-English language film that I endeavoured to see at the local arthouse cinema as well as own on DVD months later. Not only did it help to broaden my horizons in as far as teaching me to not merely look to the next Hollywood blockbuster for cinematic thrills, but it also opened my eyes to a more playfully modern visual language in cinema that embraced all manner of tricks and easter eggs through its hyperkinetic presentation and style. And if you want proof of its prescience in pop culture in general, it was referenced in both Buffy The Vampire Slayer and The Simpsons around the time of its release (which at the time was a sign of good taste, whatever reputation those properties hold today…)

As premises go, Run Lola Run’s is a simple one; fierce heroine Lola tries to get criminal boyfriend Manni off the hook after he bungles a sizeable drug-and-car-deal for a local gangster by asking her father for some money to bail them out. Tykwer and his team then proceed to show three different outcomes as to how her frantic mission plays out, each scenario offering different outcomes not just for the manic Lola and desperate Manni but also key supporting characters that they interact with in varying degrees of proximity as each timeline progresses via cross-cuts, flash-forwards, hand-drawn animation and split-screen editing among other flashy techniques deployed to keep the story’s urgency going. Normally when a film boasts a running time less than eighty minutes long, it is a sign that something has either gone wrong in the editing suite or that the concept itself cannot sustain a feature-length form; in turning Lola into a triptych of dark humour and action that slyly comments on itself via themes of causality and coincidence rather than elongating the plot thread into a more conventional narrative (for example, keep an eye out for that ambulance), Tykwer and his team side-step this potential foible quite breathtakingly, offering the finest piece of multi-strand escapism this side of Community’s season three episode, “Remedial Chaos Theory”.

One thing that landmark episode from one of the funniest shows in recent years doesn’t have that Lola does though is a banging techno soundtrack, one that doubles not just as one of the defining action film scores of the 1990s but also one of the most underrated dance music albums of that decade. Sharing writing duties with Tykwer, DJs-turned-composers Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil cook up a stormy rave here that may appear to be more indebted to a show from The Prodigy than a Jerry Bruckheimer movie on the surface, but nevertheless captures some exquisite moments of galvanising tension that are appropriately cinematic in scope, nestling itself in electronic music’s cinematic lineage somewhere between Nellee Hooper’s mix-tastic melange for Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and The Dust Brothers’ gorgeously deranged collage work on Fight Club. And in a somewhat random move given their established back catalogue in alternative rock and chamber pop, in 2016 independent record label Bella Union stepped up to put the whole shebang on special edition vinyl dyed in the same sumptuous hue of red as the eponymous heroine’s flowing mane.

Disc one concerns itself with main bulk of the score from the film minus a few classical pieces and pop tunes inserted at key moments for ironic effect, particularly this Dinah Washington song which is somewhat missed here. After the lead single “Believe” performed by Lola herself, Franka Potente, which was written specifically to promote the film on MTV (insert “WHEN THEY USED TO PLAY MUSIC LOL” joke here), the score barely gives you any time to ready yourself for the breakneck pace of proceedings, the “Introduction” summoning in a cacophony of ticking rhythms and ominous bass synths before unleashing a mightily loud bombast of distorted guitar screams and techno chicanery. Thereafter, each of Lola’s attempts to save Manni is given its own breathless backing track, each of them driven with an urgency and vigour that befits the particular action ahead, with “One” helping to set up the conceit with a driving straight-arrow mentality ahead of the more bombastic momentum of “Two” and before those inimitable guitar licks kick “Three” off with a more lateral-minded sense of cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y92D4pzZsiU

Another facet of the score that makes it unique is its sustained use of vocals supplied by Potente, Klimek and singer Susie van der Meer providing commentary and motivation on Lola’s journey more akin to catchy pop singles than classic film scores, equal parts admissions of love, frustration and determination. This was bore from an initial idea Tykwer had of trying evoke a more frenzied narration style that would go off on more random tangents dissociated from the main action that was thankfully tempered down to something more direct and discernible for the audience to better follow the story. All the while, cheeky little motifs more reminiscent of conventional thriller scores tend to crop up to punctuate the action, one highlight being the ticking-clock glockenspiel used to temper the menacing crescendo of “Supermarket” and Potente’s vocals edited to resemble a heavenly choir on “Three”. Which isn’t to say the whole soundtrack is set to primo-surge for its entire running time (no pun intended); penultimate track “Casino” takes things in a more ambient and contemplative direction that mirrors the mounting dread ahead of the finale before closing out on van der Meer’s ruminative “Somebody Has To Pay”, which sounds like the best b-side Natalie Imbruglia never recorded.

For those who remember Lola and its soundtrack’s initial release though, this was only a sizeable chunk of what the compilation had to offer, as anyone who left the CD playing would find that the second half of the album swiftly turned into that most 90s of electronic music trends: a remix album. Rather than tap more commercially successful beat masters for more mainstream-friendly re-works though, Klimek and Heil selected good friends from their circle of underground DJ’s more indebted to their established forays into ambient techno to give their original cues a more after-hours feel, thereby lending a more cerebral approach to the whole endeavour. Highlights include Klimek and Lee Spencer going “One” better by incorporating Lola’s most triumphant assertion of her will into the mix to herald a more propulsive version of her first attempt at saving her beleaguered beau as well as Tommi Eckart’s trippy recalibration of the vocals in “Casino”; and being the diligent aficionados that they are, Bella Union have been sure to include each one on this edition too, so that’s lovely.

To sum up, if you are in need of an artefact that crystallises everything good about late-90s techno in response to this persistent 80s revival that shows no signs of abating, Lola Rennt – Der Soundtrack Zum Film has you covered. And the fact that it also doubles up as the soundtrack to one of the better action romances of that decade gives it the kind of edge that is simply too irresistible to ignore. At the end of the day, a good soundtrack listened to in isolation from its source material is doing a disservice if it does not make you want to watch the film that inspired it, and the work concocted by the Pale 3 here is more than worthy to stand as such an example.

What do you think? Have you seen Lola Rennt and have a favourite timeline to follow as canon? And are you looking forward to the Hindi remake due at some point this/next year? Please leave a comment below and share with fellow Rennters, if you are so inclined. If you don’t mind though, I shall be slowing things down next time.

See you soon and keep well! xxxo