Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run (1998)

When most people talk about films and time loops, they refer to time loops as “a la Groundhog Day.” In Groundhog Day and many other films like it, time loops are a way for normal people to try everything again. Ultimately, time loops are seen as a sort of bad karma. But in tonight’s film, Run Lola Run, time loops are a chance for Lola (played by Franka Potente) to try things again in an attempt to save her boyfriend, Manni (Moritz Bleibtreau).

In Run Lola Run, both written and directed by Tom Tykwer, it appears that nobody is aware that they are in a time loop at all, unlike Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day who is completely aware of his repeating, so much so that he manipulates his experience to set up certain events, learn to play piano, and win the heart of a woman he’s smitten with. The plot of Run Lola Run rotates around Lola’s need for a large sum of money to save her Manni’s life. He owes a lot of money to a crime boss who will kill him if he doesn’t deliver. Lola chooses to try to steal money from the bank where her father works, then deliver the money to Manni, who’s trying to get the money himself by robbing a grocery story. Tykwer repeats the sequence three times. Each time Lola goes to the bank, she learns the same things. If she were aware that she had tried this before, she would have not gone back each time. However, notice that in the first sequence, Manni shows Lola how to load a gun. In the second sequence, she knows how to use a gun already.

So, a major theme in this film is the concept of chaos. The chaos theory states that small things that people do can (and often do) result in major changes. Notice that the only real difference between the three sequences is how Lola responds to the man on the stairwell during the animation sequence. Each response causes a slight change in timing, and therefore a totally different outcome. Also, each time Lola passes people on the street, a different future is shown for those people, though there are seemingly no differences within the context of the film.

One final theme in the film is futility. Lola seems to make quite a few decisions in each loop that result in the outcome. But did she ever decide how the sequence would end? Was there any great planning on her part? Or is fate simply in the hands of the man with the dog? Is Lola simply running around like a ball on a track, encountering whatever obstacles she will? Nobody, perhaps not even Tykwer himself, can know.

Noah Shavit-Lonstein
SPA Film Club