Run Lola, Run and my reflection on the semester

This week in class we had a screening of a 1998 German thriller film, “Run Lola, Run”. The film was written and directed by Tom Tykwer, and starring Franka Potente as Lola and Moritz Bleibtreu as Manni. The story follows a woman who needs to obtain 100,000 Deutsche Mark in twenty minutes to save her boyfriend’s (Manni’s) life.

Through my own research and through an analytical article written about the film, I have gained an understanding of what I believe the director was trying to portray. From the article: “Tykwer belongs to a generation of Germans that embraces popular culture rather than criticizes it as a colonization of the mind and a form of cultural imperialism.” The director made this film with the pride of germany, adding in various parts of german culture as well as different themes throughout the movie that are seen in other german films and literature.

 

The film touches on themes such as the role of chance in people’s destiny, and obscure cause-effect relationships. Through brief flash-forward sequences of flashing images, Lola’s quick interactions with bystanders she encounters while she is running to Manni are revealed to have surprising and drastic effects on their future lives, serving as illustrations of a butterfly effect (However, another explanation is that Lola’s interactions with them didn’t really cause anything. It’s just that each person inherently has vastly different possibilities of ways that their lives could play out, and a different version of their lives is shown in the three different ways.) The film’s exploration of the relationship between chance and conscious intention is shown in the casino scene, where Lola appears to defy the laws of chance through sheer force of will, wishing with everything she had that she would win the money, and making the roulette ball land on her winning number with the help of her glass-shattering scream.

The thematic exploration of free will vs. determinism is made clear from the start. In the film’s brief prologue, a narrator asks a series of rhetorical questions that cause the audience to view the film through a metaphysical lens touching on philosophical questions. The theme is reinforced through the repeated appearance of a blind woman who briefly interacts with Manni in each alternative reality, and seems to have supernatural understandings of both the present and potential futures in those realities. By the final telephone booth scene in which the blind woman directs Manni’s attention to the man who stole his money in the beginning of the film, which allows him to finally retrieve his bag of money, saving his life.

Several moments in the film show what seems to be a supernatural awareness of the characters. For example, in the first twenty minute reality sequence, Manni shows Lola how to use a gun by removing the safety, while in the second timeline she removes the safety as though she remembers what to do. This suggests that she might have the memory of the events depicted in the previous reality sequence. Also, the bank’s guard says to Lola “you finally came” in the third sequence, as if he possibly remembered Lola’s appearances in the previous two. There are other themes that are more obvious throughout the film; love, as seen through Lola and Manni’s relationship, and the kinds of things that love will lead people to do, also seen in the relationship with Lola’s Father and his mistress. Also, a big one, time. Time is the most obvious theme in the film, as there are many flashing images of clocks and watches, and the film being split up into four 20-minute sections.

As for my reflection on this semester as a whole, I had a great semester with what content I learned from this class. Entering class, I was completely unaware of the kinds of things I would be learning about, and wasn’t all that interested, just took it because a friend told me I should. Throughout the course I found that the things we were talking about had an impact on my everyday life, being an artist and constantly creating work, I found myself influenced by and thinking more about the history of film while I was creating. I find that I am more interested in older films now, and I appreciate them much more than I previously did.

I found an almost immediate interest within the first half of the class, learning about old german horror films which I have always loved watching and learning about. Going through the different decades and learning but why filmmakers and production companies filmed what they did caused me to be more aware of things like that as I watch films now, as I never compared films that I like to other films of their time to realize those similarities that connected time frames and production companies to their films. One of my favorite weeks was the week that we learned about “midnight movies” and screened “the Rocky Horror Picture Show” which has been always been one of my all time favorites, but I never realized that in the 70’s there was such a cultural movement caused by films like this.

The Overall mood of class, seeing how interested and informed other students are in class, definitely made me intrigued to learn more about the films and the history of how and why they were made. I am registered for next semester to take  “intro to film”, and heard about a “Cult Film” class that is happening next spring semester that I also am looking into taking! I hope that through taking these classes and learning about film that my art work will continue to hold those influences and I can sway my artwork in that way. Also as I start to form my schedules more around photography, I think that learning about film and incorporating that will be a big help in ideas composition of my work!