Tom Tykwer makes movement and music do much of the storytelling, and we rate him most when both serve a simple, urgent task. Start with Run Lola Run, where the cutting is more persuasive than the philosophy.
Fi1m perspective
Franka Potente runs, and Tom Tykwer keeps finding ways to make the same urgent errand worth watching again. In Run Lola Run (1998), Lola has twenty minutes to save her boyfriend, and the film offers three versions of the attempt. We were excited by the running because Potente's determination keeps the rescue feeling urgent through each restart. Tykwer's breakthrough remains our starting point for his work: a funny, inventive thriller whose showmanship mostly helps us follow the action. He gives himself a simple task here, and the film benefits from that limit.
Frank Griebe's cinematography keeps Lola clear while the camera loops around her. Editor Mathilde Bonnefoy makes the small differences between runs easy to notice, even as Tykwer switches between kinds of image. The techno score by Tykwer, Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek works closely with the cutting, making repetition feel urgent rather than dutiful. Alexander Manasse's production design is quieter, keeping Berlin a place Lola has to get across. We remember the running better than the streets, which is appropriate for this particular film.
The limitation is in Tykwer's screenplay, where convenient rearrangements of events are asked to tell us something about fate. The film remains warmly enjoyable, but its ideas cannot quite bear the emphasis he puts on them. The Princess and the Warrior (2000) returned to fate and connection with Potente, before Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006) took him into literary adaptation and period detail. He also worked on the scripts and scores of both films, keeping music within his own responsibilities as the work grew. That expansion is worth following, though elaboration alone has never been what makes his work engaging.
With Cloud Atlas (2012), co-directed with the Wachowskis, he moved into multiple interwoven stories, with some unevenness of tone. Television gave that appetite more room in Babylon Berlin (2017), which recreates Weimar Berlin. Working with co-writers and co-directors Achim von Borries and Henk Handloegten, he helped make the city central to the series. Collaboration matters here: the clarity Griebe and Bonnefoy bring to Lola's frantic journey is as valuable as Tykwer's taste for complication. For a first encounter, choose Run Lola Run and let its thoughts about chance pass without close examination.
Biography
Tom Tykwer is a German film director, screenwriter and composer. He was born on 23 May 1965 in Wuppertal, Germany.
He is best known for directing, writing and composing the score for Run Lola Run (1998). His other notable works include directing The Princess and the Warrior (2000), Heaven (2002), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), The International (2009) and co-directing Cloud Atlas (2012) with the Wachowskis. He co-created the television series Babylon Berlin (2017–) and directed episodes of Sense8 (2015–2018).
