LOLA AND JEAN

It is a little-known fact that the 1998 film Lola rennt (Run Lola Run) is actually based on an event that occurred on July 22nd (2005) in London, England. In the movie version, a narrator iterates the musings of the late soccer coach Josef (Sepp) Herberger -- the Yogi Berra of Germany: "After the game is before the game. The ball is round. The game lasts 90 minutes." Then, the telephone rings and Lola dashes through the streets of Berlin to find 100,000 deutschmarks in only 20 minutes. Accompanied by a pulsing techno soundtrack, Lola runs to her father's workplace -- a bank -- where she interrupts his conversation with a mistress. The mistress is unable to identify Lola despite her bright red hair. Frustrated, Lola unleashes a primal scream that shatters the glass clock in her father's office. She sprints to her boyfriend Manni who is in the middle of robbing a supermarket. The police respond, and a nervous officer accidentally shoots and kills Lola.

In the actual version of the story, a young electrician from Brazil, who dislikes soccer, receives a call to fix a broken fire alarm. The electrician enjoys the songs of George Michael and Elton John, and he often sends money home to his father who is a bricklayer. The electrician leaves his flat for the bus, and a police officer identifies him by his "Mongolian eyes." When the electrician reaches the Stockwell Tube station, he runs across the platform to catch the oncoming train and find a good seat. Once inside the train car, a plain-clothes police officer grabs the electrician's arms and pins them to his side. Two more officers fire eleven hollow-point bullets at the man's head. Seven hit his face, one hits his shoulder, and three shatter the glass window. The whole story is over in 30 minutes, and it's 62 degrees outside. The electrician was mistaken for a Somali or Ethiopian suicide bomber. His name was Jean Charles de Menezes.