By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – Lola is a science fiction movie the likes of which I never have seen before, but I was fascinated by every minute of it. Most of it is shot in black and white by a hand-held camera. The story is augmented by documentary footage, some real, some intentionally altered to accommodate what supposedly happens when the timeline of events is disrupted.
In 1938, fictional British sisters Thomasina and Martha Hanbury (respectively portrayed by Emma Appleton and Stefanie Martini) find when they tinker with their late father’s experimental television equipment, it can tune into broadcasts of the future. They name the remarkable piece of equipment “Lola.” Initially, it is all fun and games, when they glimpse such recording stars as David Bowie, whose 1969 recording “Space Oddity” includes the lyric “Ground Control to Major Tom.” This delights Thomasina, who prefers to call herself Tom. They also like the songs of Bob Dylan and the Kinks, at one point popularizing and getting Britons to dance to “Girl, You Really Got Me” well in advance of its 1964 release.
However, after Nazi Germany begins its blitz bombing campaign against England, the sisters decide to put the magical television receiver to more important use. They tune into future news to determine where the Luftwaffe will inflict the most damage, and then, in the present, broadcast the location where people should take cover. The lady broadcaster is dubbed the “Angel of Portebello,” by grateful British subjects. Before long, the sisters are traced through their broadcast signals by British Army Lt. Sebastian Holloway (Rory Fleck Byrne) who promptly falls in love with Martha.
Together, the sisters, Holloway, and his commanding officer, Maj. Henry Cobcraft (Aaron Monaghan) devise with higher-ups in the Army a plan to concentrate anti-aircraft batteries in the areas where they know the Nazis will strike, a major blow to the Nazi war machine. They also do this to Nazi submarines, and, for a while at least, Britain’s ultimate victory in World War II seems a certainty.
However, the Nazis figure out how to fool Lola by broadcasting a false report of where in England a Nazi amphibious force supposedly was able to stage a successful invasion. Anticipating the invasion, the British mass their forces in Southampton, but learn to their woe that the Nazis had tricked them. The invasion force really was aimed at Dover, where there were inadequate defenses. Subsequently, as the war is fought on the British home islands, Tomasina and Martha are vilified, accused of being traitors and Nazi spies. There are demands that they be hanged forthwith.
I’ll leave off the plot there, not wanting to spoil the subsequent action and the ending, but suffice it to say there are several twists and turns.
My major problem with the film is not what is in there, but what was left out. In this film, Hitler and his thugs are portrayed as almost benign enemies. There is no mention of the Nazis’ racial policies nor their genocidal campaign against the Jews. All this is lost as the film delves into the consequences of time line disruptions. One might get the feeling watching this movie that if Hitler had won World War II, matters might not have been so bad and that for the bulk of British subjects, life might have gone on pretty much as normal. For this reason, in an era of Holocaust denial, this movie is alarming.
Lola, a Dark Sky Film directed and co-written by Andrew Legge, is scheduled to be shown in theatres and viewed-on-demand beginning August 8.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com