Lola (2022)

August 4, 2023 12:24 PM

In 1941, orphaned sisters Thomasina and Martha create the world’s first and only chronovisor, LOLA, to discover music from the future and place bets, before realising it will best be used to help fight the Nazis. But when the sisters clash, the consequences are catastrophic. A found footage style film shot on vintage Bolex cameras.

Starring Emma Appleton, Stefanie Martini, Rory Fleck-Byrne, Aaron Monaghan, Shaun Boylan, Hugh O'Conor, Ayvianna Snow, Philip Condron.

Directed by Andrew Legge. Written by Andrew Legge, Angeli Macfarlane.

100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Now playing in select cinemas. Also available for digital rental/purchase. JustWatch.

posted by DirtyOldTown (13 comments total)

[TRAILER}

Not part of my recent series of grouped posts, but could have been, really.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:26 PM on August 4, 2023

This seems to be an expansion/reimagining of Legge's 2009 short film The Chronoscope. YouTube, Vimeo.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:39 PM on August 4, 2023

Now, I am picturing them changing the course of history with their retrieval from 2023 of The Planet of the Bass.
posted by praemunire at 3:48 PM on August 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Wow. Huge fan.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:06 PM on August 4, 2023

This trailer looks great, thanks!
posted by mediareport at 11:27 PM on August 4, 2023

This is messy and imperfect, but what a masterpiece. I loved it! It is so ambitious and cool and also just a lot of fun to watch.

Clearly, it's not going to be for everyone but I was absolutely sold on it and I loved how all of it came together.
posted by edencosmic at 4:27 PM on August 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Pretty great! Excellent use of the vintage cameras. Aside from looking great, they really add to the verisimilitude of the film, and blend in with the archival footage really well. Plot-wise, a nice variation on the "you can't REALLY change anything" theme of time travel.

I liked the idea of just collecting music and culture from the future without trying to change anything. Just the other day I was suggesting to my wife that, if I could travel back in time, I wouldn't try to mess anything up, but I would totally film/record seminal concerts and recording sessions that have been lost to time.
posted by mrphancy at 8:23 PM on August 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

The fascist pop star who replaced Bowie was spot on horrible.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:01 AM on August 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

This sort of thing is fairly laser-focused in the intersection of several of my interests. I thought it was good!

One thing is that the Bowie replacement showed up on the airwaves before the Major Fuckup, which suggests that the Major Fuckup didn't really matter (since all their receptions seemed to be from futures affected by Lola's past receptions, but not future ones).

Anyway, I imagine that the unfilmed coda to this movie is a heist to break into the BBC at exactly 9:03 on March 8th, 1973.
posted by BungaDunga at 6:12 PM on August 8, 2023

I think the first major fuck-up was not entirely recognized as a major fuck-up. And that one was letting the Abraham Lincoln go down as bait for the U-Boats. That basically made the US completely opposed to backing England later, and that is probably what led to the fascist 70's.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:17 PM on August 8, 2023

Ah, right, I meant Abraham Lincoln, not the actual invasion. But even the Lincoln happens right after they tune into Fascist Bowie for the first time, not before... so they either were receiving broadcasts from futures that were influenced by the Abraham Lincoln intervention before they'd done it (which had not seemed to happen previously), or it was something they'd already done, or the film is somehow put together out of order.

On the other hand, Lola has to occasionally be able to receive transmissions from futures affected by Lola's own interventions, otherwise the idea to try and broadcast something for 1938 Lola to pick up couldn't have worked...
posted by BungaDunga at 6:48 PM on August 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm still thinking about this fairly often, despite having seen easily a dozen films since.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:22 AM on August 25, 2023

By the way, this ended up being the opposite of the same filmmaker's short "The Chronoscope." In that one, the machine can see scenes from history. The inventor gets kidnapped by the Nazis to provide evidence of Aryan superiority. The actual results... do not please them.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:33 AM on August 28, 2023