`RUN LOLA RUN' SPRINTS THROUGH FILMMAKING TECHNIQUE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Just about every kind of film form you can think of finds its way into the kinetic German urban fantasia ``Run Lola Run.'' There's pixilation, video, cel animation, special effects, all manner of camera speeds in every conceivable moving pattern; in other words, it's the kind of showoffy showpiece that should rightfully be a cacophonous mess.

Except that all of these diverse style elements and more are orchestrated with astonishing rigor by writer-director Tom Tykwer. The film bursts with percussive, creative energy even when it teeters under the strain of aesthetic overreaching.

The end result? Definitely too clever by half, but a gas nevertheless.

Though only 81 minutes long, ``Lola'' moves so rapidly that it can tell the same story three different times in three different ways with varying outcomes. The basic plot concerns Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), a young underworld courier who has carelessly lost 100,000 marks he needs to deliver to his unforgiving boss in 20 minutes.

The panicked Manni calls his girlfriend Lola (Franka Potente), who is partially responsible for the dire situation. She assures him she'll get the money to him in the alloted time, even though she hasn't got a pfennig and will have to run halfway across Berlin to meet him. If she's late, he's going to rob a supermarket.

The desperate, athletic Lola cuts quite a memorable figure trotting along cobblestones and broken concrete, her persimmon hair flopping atop her head like a worrying flame. Avoiding angry dogs, flocks of nuns and aggressive hustlers of all stripes, she variously relies on pleading, violence and gambling to get her job done.

Assaulted by emotional betrayal and relentless sight gags (a favorite Tykwer ploy is to insert snapshots of the future fates that await people Lola passes), our plucky distance gal displays an imaginative resilience that is as impressive as her physical stamina. Tykwer does pretty much the same thing, always coming up with a robust bit of staging that brings urgency to even thrice-repeated scenes.

The director has a fine instinct for pacing, too. The movie's driving forward motion is punctuated by still, character-revealing moments, and there's even a contrapuntal shot of a turtle trudging along. As might be expected from a filmmaker so fixated on visual rhythms, Tykwer was also involved with composing the film's score, a barrage of appropriately Teutonic techno-beats.

And the triple attack on the same plot line gives Tykwer, well, endless opportunity to play with cinematic time and narrative caprice. Split-second decisions and encounters lead Lola in amusingly varied directions, turning the whole filmgoing experience into a kind of labyrinthine game.

Fun as it all is, though, by the third go-'round tedium perhaps inevitably sets in. Tykwer's final set of formal and story ideas just can't sustain the level of inventive momentum we've come to expect.

That noted, there's still more real filmmaking in the short span of ``Run Lola Run'' than you'll see in hundreds of hours' worth of conventional Hollywood movies. Catch it if you can.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Run Lola Run'' (R; language, violence, drug use).

The stars: Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Tom Tykwer. Produced by Stefan Arndt. Released by Sony Pictures Classics.

Running time: One hour, 21 minutes.

Playing: Nuart, West L.A.

Our rating: Three stars.

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Photo

Photo: Franka Potente takes to the streets at a pace matched by writer-director Tom Tykwer's innovative streak in ``Run Lola Run.''