Run Lola Run is made up of three acts, which all follow a similar pattern; Lola is running to get money for her boyfriend Manni who is in a grave situation if he cannot deliver it on time. Failing in her task signifies the end of an act and she is forced to replay the events and start her quest from the beginning.
Learning and Running
The events clearly change from one story to the next but it is debatable whether Lola improves as a character and changes them on purpose. If she developed considerably then that does not explain why she would continue to go to her father for money in the second and third stories after he tells her she is not his daughter and refuses to help her in the first story. Surely she would decide on another person to run to for help.
Also, as Halle and McCarthy state, “it is almost racing for racing’s sake as a celebration of thrill and excitement, the pointlessness of it emphasized by the fact that Lola’s efforts turn out to be in vain every single time.” In this sense, she does not develop as a character because in all three stories her running has no purpose.
In the first story, she is too late and ultimately dies, in the second she is on time but Manni gets run over, and in the third she is on time but Manni has found the money himself, meaning she ran all that way for no reason.
She Wins In The End
The German Cinema Book notes that Run Lola Run “replays the quest of its titular heroine (played by Franka Potente) to bail out her boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) from a life-threatening situation three times, until a satisfactory conclusion is reached.” The very fact that the film ends with a ‘satisfactory conclusion’ itself suggests that Lola has had an impact on the events that take place.
If she did not grow and develop through the stories, then surely she would just carry out the same actions each time and would not experience a happy ending. This suggests that Lola learns from the mistakes she made in the first two stories in order to resolve her problem and avoid the conflicts that previously caused her to fail.
Prior Knowledge
A key moment in the film where it seems as though Lola has indeed developed as a character takes place in the second story. In the bank she is threatening her father with the gun she took from the security guard. The guard says to her “Kid...you don’t know how to use that thing” which echoes what the man in the store said to her in the first story. This line seems to trigger and remind her of something, as she looks thoughtful.
In the store she asked Manni “How does it work?” and he replied “The little lever on the side.” Here there is a cut to a close-up of her thumb flicking the safety off. She did not know how to do that before Manni told her in the first story, so this is a strong suggestion that she has developed and can use the knowledge she acquired previously.
Also, in the second story, when the man on the bike offers to sell it to her, “Lola rejects his offer with the prescient remark that it’s stolen. How does she know? Tykwer might be suggesting that Lola and other characters can somehow learn from past playings of the game.” This is another example of Lola showing knowledge she gained from prior stories.
Game Over
A lot of theories have noted that the film’s narrative style is similar to a video game and that the process of watching Run Lola Run is like a game as well. The viewer can pick out which parts have changed from the previous stories and thus identify how Lola has grown and altered her actions.
Bergfelder et al note that “the viewer is encouraged to relate Lola’s progression at any point with the corresponding point in the episodes that have preceded it... recollection of the previous episodes is rewarded through the identification of similarities between different scenes, while new narrative elements are added in each replayed episode.”
The three stories in Run Lola Run are similar to a person replaying a level on a video game. It is almost as if Lola saved her game after she spoke to Manni on the phone so she could go back and start again from that point in time if she failed in her mission. She uses any knowledge she gained in her previous attempts and anticipates some of the obstacles that tripped her up before, so that when she retries her task she is more efficient than before.
Just One More Game
Lola is more confident and commanding in the third story. The bank guard says to her “You’ve come at last” suggesting this time she has got it right. In the previous two stories he commented on the fact that Lola was having a bad day, thus indicating her failure.
When the security man at the casino tries to throw her out she asks for “just one more game”. This has a possible double-meaning and hints that in this third attempt she is going to succeed. Her prior learning and altruistic behaviour in the third story help her to succeed and to avoid the unhappy endings of the other stories.
In conclusion, although Lola seems to be running in vain and repeats some of her previous mistakes, she does seem to acquire knowledge from her earlier attempts and learn from the past in order to help her achieve her goal.
Sources
- R. Halle and M. McCarthy (eds.) Light Motives: German Popular Film in Perspective, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 2003.
- T. Bergfelder, E. Carter and D. Goektuerk (eds.) The German Cinema Book. London: BFI, 2002.
- D. Mann, Play Lara Play, Run Lola Run: Reflections on Postmodern Comic Book and Video Game Culture, Publish Web Server.
Emma Hutchings - Film Studies graduate, freelance writer, movie reviewer & blogger who writes for PSFK, Flickering Myth, Flickfeast & Suspend Your ...
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