A
classic look at German existentialism, Run Lola Run clearly portrays
the type of philosophy Germany is famous for. The live
in the moment style and the way that the three different scenes are
portrayed clearly illustrates the philosophical concept known as "all
possible worlds" in which individual actions can drastically
change the way that a world turns out to be. What some people have
termed to be moral tendencies in the film are little more than
various outcomes of different events. In no way does the story take a
moral stance. That really is the genius of the movie. It simply
states what life could be and makes no assumptions about what life
actually is. Within this framework we will observe the ways in which
the film uses realism and anti-realism,
verisimilitude,
characterization, and
flashbacks to present
its subject matter in a curiously fun way.
The
film itself, as mentioned above, exudes philosophical musings. The
director has broken the film into three different but equally
important pieces. That of acceptance, that of anger, and that of
acceptance. In the first run Lola takes the path of accepting that
her father is leaving her and her mother and proceeds to find many
already robing the convenience store. She plays a mostly passive
character throughout the first run not making thing happen but rather
allowing things to happen to her. In the second run she becomes angry
with her father and proceeds to rob the bank that he works for in
order to save her boyfriend. In this role she is working in an active
capacity to save her boyfriend instead of allowing things to happen
to her. The third and final run plays into the theme of 'amor fati'*.
In this run Lola surrenders her ability to either be worked upon or
to work upon the world. In accordance with the philosophy of 'amor
fati' she allows fate to decide her future, as is evident in the way
that she trusts the roll of the roulette wheel in the casino. The
common theme throughout each of these encounters is not whether or
not her actions or lack of actions are moral or not but whether she
achieves her desired outcome or not. Next we will inspect how realism
and anti-realism
factor into this film.
The
idea of having a film that is split into three different scenes about
the same story may seem strange, and it is. The way the movie makes
up for this is through its use of, for the most part, a realistic
setting and actions that the ordinary viewer might find plausible for
the situation that Lola is in. For instance, the entire film is
actually filmed in Berlin, the actual setting for the movie. For the
main core of German viewers they would be presented with a location
that they would have had at least passing familiarity with. This
might reinforce the way in which they view the film as recounting a
possible day in the life of Lola and Manni. On the flip side of this
however are the strange nuances that are added to the film, such as
the ability for Lola to break glass with her voice when she is in a
rage. While this is not a characteristic most people would have the
director chose to include it in the film. The pressing question is:
why? Even thought he director had gone through the effort to present
most other facets of the movie as being realistic he added in this
particular attribute to Lola. This was possibly the directors way of
saying that the film, as much as it reflects reality does not, in
fact, hold to be the absolute reality. In other words the film is
meant to not show a realistic setting. The genius of the film however
is to reconcile both of these realities into something comprehensible
to the viewer. Here verisimilitude proves particularly adept.
Reconciling
the outlandish qualities of the film to everyday viewers expectations
of real life is a somewhat tall order. The way in which I will argue
for verisimilitude in
this particular film might seem to be out of the ordinary to some,
and they would be correct. The easiest way to convince an audience
that something is like their actual life to to provide them with a
way to relate to the film. Normally this might be construed as making
a film as realistic as possible and to siphon out any unrealistic
elements. While this is perfectly acceptable the director of this
film seems to arrive at the same believability through a completely
opposite route. By this it is meant that the inclusion of certain
unrealistic elements actually improves its verisimilitude. The
particular example that fits here is that of the animated sequences.
When a person views these sequences they are fully aware that the
images they are viewing are not of live actors but of animated
figures. Despite this fact I believe it is entirely plausible for a
viewer to understand more about the character, and therefore
characterization, of
these more two dimensional characters simply because the viewer
interprets that there is less information to know about an animated
character than about a full-fledged person. Because of this idea they
feel as though they can connect more with a character that they can
more easily understand. Therefore the idea of verisimilitude is
effective through a non-real medium.
The
final idea that is presented in the movie is that of flashbacks.
The reader, however, should take caution here as the flashbacks in
this film are not your typical flashbacks. Instead of the traditional
flashback the viewer is presented with a 'rerun'. Essentially the
viewer watches the same film three times. In the case of 'Run, Lola
Run' the flashback turns out to be a completely different reality for
the characters. The greatest part about this is the fact that in
parts of the film inklings of these other realities are still
manifest in the minds of the participants. A prime example is when
Lola has the gun while she is robbing the bank. She seems to
remember, as if from some other life that the safety on a gun must be
turned off in order to uses. In her current reality though she seems
to actively remember this and turns the safety of the gun off. In
this way the different runs in the film are flashbacks in that they
are remembering another scene in the film.
In
all the film 'Run, Lola Run' uses several great film tools to set it
apart from other movies of its kind. The philosophical undertones of
the film encourage the viewer to actively think about the film and
the meaning behind it, if there is one, while actively watching the
film. The way the director uses realism and anti-realism at the same
time engraves a strange image in the viewers mind when used in
conjunction with the flashbacks. However all of these are made to
seem more familiar to the viewer when combined with verisimilitude
and the interesting 2D characterization. The importance of the movie
in world-wide cinema is even more important however than the actual
film itself. The way in which this film allows a person to view film
opens up a large Pandora-like box for other directors to explore and
therefore the legacy of the film, while great in and of itself, it
eventually outshone by the brilliance of the directors use of his
professions paradigms.
*“Love
of Fate” (from the Latin)
