Lola Rennt (Tom Tykwer, 1998)

Lola Rennt (or ‘Run Lola Run’) is the film I’m talking about in my German speaking presentation. I chose the topic of media to combine two subjects together and to allow me to talk about something I felt I understood!
Of course, I had to watch the film in order to talk about it, and luckily, it was quite good. Starring Franka Potente (who also starred in the Bourne films) as Lola, and Moritz Bleibtreu as Manni. During shooting, Franka Potente could not wash her hair for seven weeks because the red hair color was very sensitive to water and would have got lighter with every wash!

The film is set in Berlin and follows twenty minutes, which is shown three times with different outcomes. When Lola’s boyfriend, Manni, leaves 100,000 Deutschmarks on a train, he rings her in a panic and gives her twenty minutes to come up with the same amount of money. He threatens to rob a nearby shop if she can’t come up with the money, clearly out of fear, and Lola runs frantically around Berlin trying to find 100,000 DM. Each run contains various flash-forward sequences, showing how the lives of the people that Lola bumps into develop after the encounter. In each run, those people are affected in different ways.

It was directed (and written) by Tom Tykwer, who also directed Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer. That was easily one of the most bizarre films I’d ever seen, and this one was similarly odd. It swapped between odd cartoon sequences and Lola’s story, with many references to Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’, because Tykwer is a huge fan.

Lola Rennt was nominated for 41 awards, and won 26.

Prezi: Desert Island Discs

Having mentioned music in my past two blog posts, I’m suddenly very aware that there isn’t much music on my blog, despite how much I love it, and despite the big part it plays in my life. Music can help me regardless of what mood I’m in: it cheers me up when I’m sad, calms me down when I’m angry, and can sometimes make me a bit hyper when I’m already in a good mood.

Recently, for my German homework, I had to choose the eight songs I’d want to have on my iPod if I became stranded on a desert island. This is part of the topic ‘Musik’, which has been my favourite German topic so far! The idea is based on the radio game ‘Desert Island Discs’; this was created by Roy Plomley in 1942, and the format is simple: a radio guest is invited to choose the eight records they would take with them to a desert island (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnmr).

So, to combine two subjects together, I turned my homework into a Prezi. It has English translations though, because clearly none of my media class speak German… I thought the task of choosing only eight songs was difficult, but interesting; but I hope I never end up on an island with only eight songs to listen to!

http://prezi.com/8k_z38jbl11s/desert-island-discs/

Das Boot (Wolfgang Petersen, 1981)

Since it’s nearly Christmas (eight days, just saying), school has become a very, very tiny bit more relaxed – as in, we got to watch a film in German, rather than the usual lessons spent learning the difference between regular and irregular imperfect and perfect tenses. This is undoubtedly a welcome change, but when my German teacher said it was ‘the best war film ever made’, I was expecting something better than this.

Having said that, when I looked it up to find out the director’s name, I was shocked that it was made in 1981. Perhaps, in 1981, it probably was one of the best war films ever made. However, I think that the past thirty two years have produced quite a few brilliant war films, and Das Boot didn’t really do it for me. Usually, I like foreign films, but war films aren’t the kind of films I’d choose to watch, given the option.

One of my pet hates is a film which is what I’d call a ‘dark film’. By this, I mean a film which is hard to follow because of the shadows and lack of light. Sadly, this is one of those films. It doesn’t help that I have to focus on the subtitles at the bottom of the screen too, as this makes it difficult to really follow what’s happening. Combine all this with my lack of knowledge about submarines and seafaring terminology, and it all adds up to, in my opinion, a very boring (and confusing) film.

Many people seem to disagree, however, as it grossed the equivalent of $205 million, and is one of the most expensive films in the history of German cinema… Which doesn’t say much for the reputation of German cinema, in my opinion. Maybe I’m being too harsh about it, but I actually think I’d almost prefer the irregular imperfect tense.