A clever riff on the time-travel genre, Andrew Legge’s small but mighty feature debut begins with a title card announcing the discovery of a mysterious cache of film reels in the 1940s. The grainy and jagged black-and-white footage, shot on a 16mm Bolex, turns out to be home movies made by Martha (Stefanie Martini) and Thomasina (Emma Appleton), two orphaned sisters who have devised a machine that can intercept broadcast signals from the future, and which they have named after their deceased mother.
The film impresses with its imaginative design: a circular monitor is affixed to a towering metal rig, suggesting a television screen as well as a fortune teller’s crystal globe. Glowing with prescient images – such as a video of David Bowie singing Space Oddity – this fantastical creation empowers the young women both spiritually and financially. When not grooving to 1960s rock, the pair make money off betting on horses. As the second world war rages on, the sisters also use the machine to inform the British army of the enemy’s upcoming attacks, a well-intentioned decision that leads to devastating consequences.
Lola is most enjoyable when it focuses on the shenanigans concocted by this mischievous pair. When delving into the more serious plotlines, such as an alternative reality where the Third Reich takes over Britain and Bowie’s discography no longer exists, the film becomes uncertain. Digitally altered newsreels showing Hitler and his army marching through London purport to be a warning from history, but the alarmist tone is facile; after all, in reality, it does not take a fascist invasion for supremacist ideologies to foster in Britain. Even Bowie himself once flirted with Nazi imagery. Despite beings shaky in terms of tone – as well with its occasionally obtrusive handheld camera movements – Lola impresses with its refreshing blend of analogue and digital flourishes.
• Lola is released on 7 April in cinemas, and on 8 May on digital platforms.
