The Movie “Run Lola Run” by Tykwer

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The movie “Run Lola Run” has a simple plot. It is a love story that illustrates the extent of efforts a woman can put forth to rescue her lover from certain death. The movie begins with a phone call Lola receives from her boyfriend Manni, an amateur, a small-time crook who unintentionally loses DM 100,000 he collects from a deal ¹. Manni has to reproduce the amount in 20 minutes or he will surely be neutralized by his big boss, a task which Lola takes on unhesitatingly. The story has three versions, which, somehow show that Lola has some kind of power to turn back time or reverse the order of things if she did not find them favorable. It is said that the movie’s director Tom Tykwer deliberately did these three versions as in a video game, that’s why Lola was alternately shown as an animated character ²

I chose to delve into the topic of Celestial Intervention. The assignment specifies that: “Celestial intervention can be defined as a scenario in which the forces of the gods or heavenly forces well beyond the ordinary powers of any man intervene in the lives of men and women to untangle events in their lives.” It denotes that an unknown force or forces are working together to make the situation better than what it is supposed to be.

There are numerous instances of celestial intervention which can be cited in the movie “Run Lola Run”, and it is not merely confined to the main characters but to the story’s supporting characters as well. The first is when Lola, going down the stairs of her apartment sees a man with a vicious dog.

Lola felt some apprehension but was able to pass the man and his dog although uncomfortably. On the way to her dad’s office, she almost gets hit by a car from an obscure driveway but is missed, and the car slams into the front bumper of another car. One more instance is the man with the red shirt on a bike who was selling to Lola the hot item (bike) for only DM 50. Lola told the man that she was not interested. As per what the snapshots show, the man in the red shirt gets to bump into two men who mauled him, got his bike, which made him end up in a hospital.

He met a nurse, was able to befriend her, got into a relationship, and eventually got married. Another is when Manni gets to borrow the phone card of a blind woman who patiently waits outside of the phone booth where Manni tries to call other people to help him out with his problem. Manni gives the card back to the blind woman and thanks to her, but the woman gives back the card to Manni and walks away leaving Manni confused but somehow thankful for the unexpected blessing.

When Jutta Hansen, the mistress of Lola’s father, tells him that she is pregnant, she can say her piece in such a way as to get empathy from Lola’s father and he decides to leave Lola and her mother for good, which is not the case in the 2^nd version. Another instance is when Manni tries to rob a grocery store, and Lola arrives just a little later than the time they agreed upon. An old security man asks Manni to put his gun down while holding him at gunpoint.

Lola gets hold of a plastic bag of groceries from a bystander outside the store and hits the old man with it, allowing the gun to slide near Manni’s foot. Manni slides the gun back to Lola who picks up the gun and almost shoots the man on the head when Manni instructs her to remove the safety latch — meaning, the odds were still in Lola’s favor since she did not harm anyone despite misfiring the pistol.

The bad thing is, the ending for the first version did not end up well for Lola who was accidentally shot in the chest by the police whose gun misfired as he looked up to see the red plastic bag with the 100K thrown by Manni into the air. Still, if it could be interpreted as another celestial intervention, the moment Lola uttered the word “Stop” ³, the scene got rewound to the beginning of the time Lola runs to seek help for Manni.

In the second version, Lola again almost crashes into the woman pushing a stroller. In the first version, the lady’s luck is not so favorable. This time, however, snapshots of the lady with the baby in the stroller are shown where the woman finds the inspiration to buy a Lotto ticket, wins, and becomes a millionaire. As Lola again crosses the obscure driveway, she gets to see the car’s nose and still manages to go over the hood, get back on her feet and continue running. The man in the car somehow recognizes Lola, follows her by looking in the direction she takes, but is stopped in his tracks as he again bumps into the white car which crosses his path.

It was therefore favorable for Lola who was left unharmed, but not so much for the man in the car. At the Deutsche Bank where Lola gets to see her father, one of the female clerks at the office is gripped in fear as she sees Lola holding her father at gunpoint. Snapshots later reveal that she tries to calm down walks through the corridor and meets the bank teller, a man whom she can date and have a relationship with later on.

The best example of celestial intervention in version 2 is when Lola gets the 100K, throws away the security guard’s gun before she gets out of the bank, and sees a row of police cars and policemen in front of the bank, all poised to shoot her — at first, that was what Lola thought and most probably how the viewer would see it. She was however signaled to move away from her position; was pulled to the side by one member of the SWAT team, and left there unscathed. Lola pulled herself to her feet and slowly gained speed while running away from what seemed like a no-win situation to one of emancipation.

Lola gets to call Manni’s attention before he enters the grocery store he intended to hold up. It is another moment of celestial intervention for Manni as he is saved from going into another complicated situation. Unfortunately though, as he crosses the street to meet Lola, Manni gets hit by the red ambulance and he gets to a near-death situation. His face is held in close-up as he says “No?” ⁴, and the story is rewound to the receiver of the red telephone falling exactly in its place at Lola’s apartment.

In the 3^rd version, Lola already knows about the man with his dog on the stairway so she jumps over them and goes down the stairs without any problem. The woman with the stroller is shown, through her snapshots, who is about to become an avid churchgoer and a devoted missionary.

The man in the red shirt is presented going to a burger stand and he gets to meet the bum who took Manni’s bag. The bum offers to buy the man a drink, and seeing that the bum had money, the man offers to sell the hot bike to the bum for DM 70, which he takes. Lola almost gets hit by the car in the obscure driveway but she isn’t. She just trips on the hood, and she is recognized by the car’s driver since he was a friend of Lola’s dad. He is Mr. Meyer, who fortunately does not cross paths with the white car which he bumps into in versions 1 and 2. Thus he gets to make his appointment with Lola’s dad on time.

When Jutta Hansen tells Lola’s dad about her pregnancy, she can do so but she is not able to tell him that the baby is not his, which was providential as it showed on his face that the news made him happy. Despite Lola’s rush to reach her father, they do not meet since Mr. Meyer reaches Lola’s dad ahead of her.

In the 3^rd version, the circumstances also change as Manni’s hands over the phone card to the blind woman. She replies “Wait” and she looks in the direction of the road. Manni follows her gaze and sees the bum who had his money riding a bike. He sees the bag containing the DM 100K which he remembered as his, and he immediately runs after the bum. Manni calls after the bum, but the latter recognizes him and speeds away.

Manni gives him a chase and he finds it difficult to catch up. At a corner, Manni who is in pursuit of the bike is almost hit by Mr. Meyer’s car but is missed, and instead, Mr. Meyer bumps into the white car he had been hitting in the 2 earlier versions. This time, however, Mr. Meyer and Lola’s dad seem critical after colliding head-on with the other vehicle. Still, the situation was favorable for Manni who continued to follow the bum on the bike.

Because she did not reach her dad at the office and having no other option, Lola ran blindly along the streets. She ran with her eyes closed and just followed where her feet would take her. She prayed and asked for Divine Intervention while she ran. She almost gets hit by a truck, and then she sees the casino. She heads for it but her money is short since she only had DM 99. The cost of 1 chip is DM 100 but she asked for mercy from the booth attendant and she was given 1 chip. Lola gets to raise the DM 100K in a short time so she hurries out of the casino happily and runs to their meeting place.

Meanwhile, Manni loses his patience chasing the bum so he threatens him at gunpoint so he can get his money. The bum concedes and asks for something in return for the bag of money. Manni hands over the gun which the bum gladly accepts and they part ways. They both get what they want and Manni has solved his problem.

On the other hand, the red ambulance which hits Manni in the 2^nd version of the story is presented here as having assumed a full stop when the men in the yellow jumpsuits cross the street with the long glass panel. Lola rides the ambulance, with the purpose of getting to the phone booth faster. Inside the ambulance, Lola sees a medic in the act of saving a patient using CPR. The patient motions for Lola to come closer to hold his hand, which Lola obliges to. The man’s heartbeat normalizes soon thereafter, and the medic soon stops doing the CPR. The man was saved by Lola’s simple action, and Lola was able to get to the designated meeting place faster. The situation worked beneficially for everyone.

The story of “Run Lola Run” makes use of the universal theme of love, how Lola can give everything up just to save Manni. The passion of a woman can alter anything and everything pertaining to circumstances related to this passion ⁵, and indeed Lola showed how much importance he gave to Manni, even going to the extent of holding her father at gunpoint just to get the amount. Furthermore, the movie is said to be a journey film ⁶ meaning something happens to the main character/s which is life-changing or causes some major transformation in his/her life. The journey for Lola is the way she handled Manni’s problem and how through some options, small differences in the paths taken can lead to undesirable or even fatal outcomes.

All in all, celestial intervention is prevalent throughout this movie as Lola tries to control the situation but sometimes does not succeed. She tries to find a solution in the first version, but fails and dies; she succeeds in raising the money in the second version, but Mannie dies. Eventually, in version 3, Lola gets to set everything right when through prayer, she seeks whatever intervention she could possibly implore from the world to help her to find the best solution for Manni’s problem, and she succeeds, even allowing Manni to recover the original bag from the bum who got it. Furthermore, she and Manni are both alive at the end of the story, and they even have extra money from what she won at the casino. She gave her trust to the universe and everything turned out for the better, which is the true essence of celestial intervention.

“Run Lola Run,” Wikipedia. 2010. Web.
Claudia Mesch, “Racing Berlin: The Games of Run Lola Run.” MC: A Journal of –Media and Culture. 2000.
“Run Lola Run Script – Dialogue Transcript”. Drew’s Script-o-Rama. Web.
Ibid.
Tom Tykwer “Director’s Statement. Run Lola Run” Sony Pictures. Web.
“Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt) Film Summary”. Bookrags. 2000-2006. Web.

Bibliography

“Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt) Film Summary”. Bookrags. 2000-2006, Web.

“Run Lola Run Script – Dialogue Transcript”. Drew’s Script-o-Rama. n.d., Web.

“Run Lola Run,” Wikipedia. 2010. Web.

Mesch, Claudia. “Racing Berlin: The Games of Run Lola Run.” MC: A Journal of –Media and Culture. 2000. Web.

Tykwer, Tom. “Director’s Statement. Run Lola Run” Sony Pictures. n.d., Web.

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The Movie “Run Lola Run” by Tykwer

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