Pa Robert Succi
| Published
U Back to the futureMarty McFly steals Chuck Berry’s music, assuring everyone that their kids will love it. 2022 year LOLA steals this joke Back to the futurebut this time we get a rendition of “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks. This might sound like lazy writing, but now that I think about it, it’s actually pretty awesome.
The action of the film takes place in London in the 1940s 2 world war continues to grow. Thanks to the titular device, a TV that can play broadcasts from the future, our heroes can actually know about Back to the futureand want to have their own moment to pay tribute to something no one knows about.
It’s not just fun and games LOLAhowever, because we learn how dangerous foresight can be when you can just turn on the TV and see how much the future changes when you start deciding. One day you’re stealing someone’s intellectual property before they know it (or, as I call it, “reverse plagiarism”), the next you’re handing over military strategy to government officials, wondering if you can use the device to win the war with minimal casualties.
As long as I admit it LOLA the logic of time travel hard to wrap your head around, it scores some serious points as a period piece. If you didn’t know and watched it on TV without any context, you might think it was a production from the 40s or 50s.
A new way to watch channels
LOLA In the center of the plot are two orphaned sisters Tom (Emma Appleton) and Mars (Stephanie Martini), who live alone in the remote English countryside. Ever the tinkerer, Tom realizes that she has created a time machine of sorts, but it’s not one that can transport physical matter. This particular time machine is a TV that can watch broadcasts from the future, and the sisters mainly use it to discover new music. This is how Mars discovers David Bowie and probably how Tom learns about The Kinks.
The sisters don’t use the device for anything else until the threat of an invasion erupts around them, when they realize they can warn civilians of impending raids, potentially saving thousands of lives. When they are discovered by the military, Tom and Mars run into Lt. Sebastian Holloway (Rory Fleck Byrne), who, with the help of his superior, Cobcroft (Aaron Monaghan), gives them access to military frequencies.
Immediately we see the positive influence of Tom and Mars on the war. German strikes are intercepted and countless casualties are prevented thanks to their LOLA device. But suddenly David Bowie is no more and Mars is horrified to learn that fascist pop sensation Reginald Watson (Sean Boylan) is dominating the airwaves.
To make matters worse, when Mars and Lt. Holloway develop a romantic relationship, Tom begins to alienate them, often spending long periods of time with her television time machine, altering the future in irreversible and terrifying ways.
Brilliantly shot
I’m not going to get too deep into the semantics of time travel LOLA because it follows its own internal logic, and it does it well. It doesn’t explain the chain of causation, so you’re allowed to just sit back and watch the characters deal with whatever responsibilities are assigned to them.
It is more interesting how LOLA was shot. It’s a strange combination of found footage and conventional cinema, shot entirely in black and white. Although I would have liked to see how well this film would render in full color, it’s better because of how archival footage is used. We get actual shots of people on the streets alongside 40s wartime footage that fits seamlessly into the narrative.
When I looked at the credits to find out who played Hitler and Churchill because they looked like their identical twins, I was shocked to find out that I was just watching real life footage stitched into this fiction to sell the illusion.
LOLA is a gritty, 79-minute sci-fi thriller that’s a lot of fun with the set design and sound design. It feels like lost media at its best, as if writer-director Andrew Legge was active in the 50s, and this was his science fiction a revisionist historical film about the previous decade. As of this writing, you can stream it for free on Tubi, and if you’re a fan of time travel paradoxes and classic rock, this one just begs to be seen.
