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Run Lola Run

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Run Lola Run
German-language poster
Directed byTom Tykwer
Written byTom Tykwer
Produced byStefan Arndt
StarringFranka Potente
Moritz Bleibtreu
CinematographyFrank Griebe
Edited byMathilde Bonnefoy
Music byTom Tykwer
Johnny Klimek
Reinhold Heil
Distributed bySony Pictures Classics
Release dates
Germany 20 August, 1998,
United States 18 June, 1999,
Australia 20 October, 1999
United Kingdom 27 October, 1999
Running time
76 min
CountryGermany
LanguagesGerman
English
Japanese
Budget$1,750,000 (estimated)

Run Lola Run (original German title Lola rennt, translates as Lola Runs) is a 1998 film by German screenwriter and director Tom Tykwer, starring Franka Potente as Lola and Moritz Bleibtreu as Manni. The story follows a woman who needs to retrieve 100,000 Deutsche Mark in 20 minutes to save her boyfriend's life.

Synopsis

Lola's boyfriend Manni is trying to prove his loyalty to a gang boss. Manni's final task in a particular job is to deliver 100,000 Deutsche Mark (about 51,000 Euro at the final exchange rate) to his boss Ronnie.

Everything goes wrong. Lola's moped is stolen and she is unable to transport Manni to the meeting place. After waiting for her Manni decides to use the metro. He accidentally leaves the bag, with its 100,000 Mark, in the underground after an encounter with a bum and two ticket-controllers. The money is then found by the homeless man. Manni realizes what he's done and soon makes a desperate phone call to Lola, asking her to think of something, to help him. If he does not have the money by the meeting at 12 noon, he will certainly be killed. Lola promises to get him the 100,000 Mark. Manni warns her that he will rob a supermarket on the street corner if Lola has not come in 20 minutes. Can Lola get him the money and save his life? It is at this point that the three sequential alternative realities begin.

First run

File:Runlolarun.jpg
First reality: Manni and Lola rob a supermarket.

As Lola flees from her apartment, a punk with a dog is shown on the staircase. The dog growls at her, causing her to scream and sprint faster. With little time and no vehicle, Lola runs through the streets of Berlin to get to her father's bank, with the intention of asking him for the money. Lola's father refuses, and says that he feels unappreciated at home, and that he is leaving Lola and her mother for his mistress. He also announces that he is not Lola's real father. Lola runs to where Manni is anyway, passing an ambulance that stops in front of a crew of workers carrying a window pane. She arrives at the street corner a few moments too late; Manni's robbery is already in progress. Lola decides to help Manni rob the store. The two flee on foot afterwards but find themselves surrounded by police, and a nervous police officer accidentally shoots Lola in the chest after Manni throws the bag with its stolen money into the air. While Lola is dying, a sequence of her memory (or, possibly, her consciousness) is shown. In it, Lola and Manni are together talking in bed. Lola questions Manni about his love for her and remains unconvinced that it is genuine. The scene fades in a sea of red.

Second run

As she dies, the film suddenly starts again. It jumps back to the end of Lola's first phone call from Manni and again she tries to get the money from her father. This time, the punk with a dog in the stairway trips her. Lola arrives at the bank a few moments later because of her limp, which leaves enough time for her father's mistress to explain that she is pregnant by someone else. Lola hears more of the argument this time, and becomes infuriated. She then robs her father's bank with a gun grabbed from the security officer, and takes off with the money to meet Manni, and tries to hitch a ride from the red ambulance. But her distracting the driver makes the ambulance crash into the window pane, stopping it for a few seconds. When Lola reaches Manni he is run down by the same ambulance as he crosses the street to meet her. After Manni is killed by the ambulance another memory sequence ensues in which Lola and Manni's roles are reversed: Manni questions Lola about her love for him.

Third run

The story starts a third time. Lola is a split second faster, as she leaps over the punk on the steps and stops on Mr. Meyer's (her father's co-worker, as it now turns out) car long enough to prevent his accident in the first two realities. This allows Mr. Meyer to get to work and pick up Lola's father. As a result, Lola misses her father completely. Not knowing what to do, she decides to simply keep running. However her father, along with Mr. Meyer now end up in an apparently fatal car crash as the tramp with the money distracts the driver.

Lola enters a casino, buys a single 100-mark chip, and finds a roulette table. She wins two consecutive bets on the number "20" (an echo of the 20 minutes of her journey), which gives Lola 127,000 Marks. More than sufficient money to help Manni, but she still must catch him in time. She hitches a ride in the same ambulance, unnoticed by the driver, as it stops in front of the crew with the window pane. The ambulance is carrying Schuster, the security guard from her father's bank who has apparently suffered a heart attack, as foreshadowed by his clutching his chest and his loud heartbeats in the Second Run earlier in the film. Although some English subtitles here have Lola saying "I'll stay with him," the actual German line is "Ich gehöre zu ihm", which translates as "I'm with him" or "I belong with him." She holds Schuster's hand, and moments later, his heart rate begins to return to normal.

Meanwhile, Manni has borrowed a phone card from a blind woman (portrayed for the third time) to make a phone call as he futilely seeks a loan. As in the other sequences, he returns the phone card to the woman, but this time the woman gestures with her head, and Manni looks up to notice the tramp with his money riding by on a bicycle. Manni chases him down, recovers his money, gives him his pistol in exchange for the bag of cash and then delivers it to Ronnie. Lola arrives to find Manni stepping out of Ronnie's car and shaking his boss's hand. The movie ends with Manni asking Lola what is in the bag she is carrying.

Connections between the runs

Throughout the film, Lola bumps into people, talks to them, or simply passes them by. Details of that person's future are subsequently shown in a series of still frames. The futures are widely divergent from encounter to encounter. In one scenario, a woman whom Lola accidentally bumps into remains poor and kidnaps an unattended baby after her child was taken away by social workers. In another scenario the woman wins the lottery and becomes rich. In the third scenario, the woman experiences a religious conversion.

Several moments in the film allude to a supernatural awareness of the characters. For example, in the first reality, a nervous Lola is shown by Manni how to use a gun by removing the safety, whereas she does this as if remembered from a previous experience in the second reality. Lola's encounters with Schuster also contain an air of the supernatural.

The movie itself begins by posing questions pertaining to the unpredictability of the world and the unknowable nature of its meaning. It suggests that drastically disparate consequences can alter the fates of different people from a one second change in the time of one person's running.

Themes and symbols:

Spirals – The soccer clip with the swirling between and around people, the intro with the animated Lola running, swirling around Lola as she thinks about whom to ask for the money, the stairway, the roulette game spins as they wait to see which number will win, the swirling logo on the sign of the convenience store.

The color red – the phone, Lola’s hair, the ambulance, the bike, the bag with money, the red tint while Lola and Manni are in bed, there is red in almost every shot in the film, whether it be a shirt on a passer by or a picture in the background.

Glass – The very beginning as the animated Lola runs she punches the names resulting in a glass shattering sound. The ambulance crashes into a huge glass sheet (only in one of the three sequences). When Lola screams she has the ability to break glass. Lola and Manni are able to talk to each other through the supermarket window.

Time – Clock at the very beginning of the film (it stops), there is 20 minutes to get the money, the techno music is a lot like the ticking of a clock

Love – Lola and Manni are very much in love and care about each other very much – in between each “run” or sequence, Lola and Manni are in bed having discussions about their relationship and how each other feels

Life – A lot of value is placed on life and living; Lola dies in the first sequence and decides she is unsatisfied with that. When Manni dies he also realizes he is not ready to leave the world or Lola. There is a message about life even the shots of other characters – the dark haired woman in the bank who in the snapshots commits suicide.

Interconnectedness – Everything Lola does has an effect on those around her – she has the ability to change people’s future as she goes back and changes her own.

Allusions

With its time limit and "multiple lives" concept, the film owes a clear debt to Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski, who explored the theme in films such as Blind Chance, The Double Life of Véronique, and Three Colors: Red. Tykwer would go on to direct Heaven, which Kieślowski (who died in 1996) had planned as his next film.

The film features two allusions to Alfred Hitchcock's film Vertigo. Like that film, it features recurring images of spirals, such as the 'Spirale' Cafe behind Manni's phone box and the spiral staircase down which Lola runs. In addition, the painting on the back wall of the casino of a woman's head seen from behind is based on a shot in Vertigo: Tykwer disliked the empty space on the wall behind the roulette table and commissioned production designer Alexander Manasse to paint a picture of Kim Novak as she appeared in Vertigo. Manasse could not remember what she looked like in the film and so decided to paint the famous shot of the back of her head. The painting took fifteen minutes to complete.

In the casino, Lola chooses the number "20" in the roulette game because it represents the time length of Lola's mission. The scene parallels one in Casablanca, where a character wins by betting twice on the same number - in that case "22".

Lola's strong shriek which can break glasses may be a reference to The Tin Drum (German: Die Blechtrommel) by Günter Grass, as both are concerned with time and the role it can play in human life.

There are also several references to German culture in the film. The most notable is the use of Hans Paetsch as a narrator. Paetsch is a famous voice of children's stories in Germany, recognized by millions. Many of the small parts are cameo roles by famous German actors (for example the bank teller). Also, two quotes by German football legend Sepp Herberger appear: "The ball is round, the game lasts 90 minutes, everything else is pure theory," and, "After the game is before the game."

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the film, by Tykwer, Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil, includes numerous musical quotations of the sustained string chords of The Unanswered Question, an early 20th-century chamber ensemble work by American composer Charles Ives. In the original work, the chords are meant to represent the "the Silences of the Druids—who Know, See and Hear Nothing."

The song "Wish" (actually sung and written by Potente) alters mood and atmosphere. In the first, the music is played in the wake of alertness; the second displays danger. The third is upbeat with additional lyrics such as "Never Say Never." Moreover, the third sequence's music explains Lola's true emotions and struggles. It also metaphorically explains her desire towards the upcoming present and future. The song "What a Diff'rence a Day Made", performed by Dinah Washington, is played toward the end of the first reality.

Locations

Run Lola Run is shot extensively in and around Berlin, Germany. Here are some of the confirmed locations:

  • Lola's apartment - The apartment block is located at 13-14 Albrechtsrasse.
  • U-bahn train overpass - The location is on the north corner of Falckensteinstrasse and Oberbaumstrasse.
  • Bridge passageway - Oberbaumbrücke
  • U-bahn station in the middle of the road - It is the south entrance of Französische Strasse U-bahn station. The entrance is actually located on Friedrichstrasse. Lola appears from Jägerstrasse, runs across the road and then around the corner in to Französische Strasse. The actual path Lola takes differs from run to run.
  • The "Nun's" - North end of Meuerstrasse.
  • Lola and the Cyclist - Further south of Meuerstrasse. The cyclist appears from Französische Strasse.
  • Shop Underpassage - The shop underpassage that Lola runs in Run 1 is on corner of Charlottenstrass and Französische Strasse.
  • "Deutsche Transfer Bank" - The 'bank' is located at the corner of Behrenstrasse and Hedwigskirchgasse. Today (2008), it is a 5 star hotel.
  • "The Supermarket" - The supermarket is located at the north-west corner of the intersection of Osnabrücker Strasse and Tauroggener Strasse.
  • Lola runs in front of lorry - The corner of Hinter dem Giesshaus and Unter den Linden.
  • "The Casino" - The exterior of the casino is located on Unter den Linden, across from Hinter dem Giesshaus.
  • Manni getting arrested - Deutsche Oper U-Bahn station.
  • Herr Meier coming out of his garage - The location is 23-24 Wallstrasse Berlin. Today (2008) it is a hotel.
  • The Ambulance and Glass - The intersection of Bucholzer Strasse and Greifenhagner Strasse. Lola and the ambulance start at the south end of the Greifenhagner Strasse and travel North.
  • 'Wishing Manni to wait' - Shortly after Strausberger Platz, along Karl Marx Allee, running east. In the film the Fernsehturm is obscured by the trees.

Free Will vs. Determinism

On several occasions the theme of free will vs. determinism is integrated into the film. The opening narration states the futility of asking questions, as one leads to another and we only travel in circles. Lola's interactions with other people are similar in that a small conversation or interaction with the people on the streets lead to other interactions. For example, the man on the bike can become a happy, married man or a bum. The concept of free will is also presented because she has three different realities to choose from.

Cast

DVD

The movie was released on DVD on 21 December, 1999, and was released on Blu Ray on 19 February, 2008.

See also

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