Since I first saw RUN LOLA RUN right aroung the same time as I did Michael Haneke's 1997 FUNNY GAMES, the two remain linked in my mind. show more
Since I first saw RUN LOLA RUN right aroung the same time as I did Michael Haneke's 1997 FUNNY GAMES, the two remain linked in my mind. Odd in a way, since I love this movie--and have watched it several times--and had quite the opposite reaction to the Haneke film, to the point where I refused to consider seeing the American re-make from 2008. But there was one significant aspect these two late-90s films shared: both films very deliberately called attention to the fact that they WERE indeed films: artificial representations of the real world, subject to authorial intervention and variation at almost any point in the plot.
Tom Tykwer's LOLA is, in many ways, an extremely self-conscisous film. Its thrice-repeated basic plot, with extensive variations and elaborations, is a reminder that narratives can (and perhaps should) be subject to artistic manipulation or--as in Hollywood--to audience reactions at the test screenings. "Don't like THAT ending? Try this one! Or this one. We must have something here you'd like--and would pay seven bucks a pop to see." RUN LOLA RUN is a movie for anyone who's ever compulsively watched every single alt-ending provided on a DVD. It works for the same reason that the various versions of any other narrative work. Endings are seldom neat and always subject to change. Any plot suggests its alternative versions, "What if?" says the audience, "What if?"
LOLA lets the viewer in on the secret--and, to extent, on the decision making. This is a fiction, and you're not allowed to forget it. There could be something depressingly Sisyphean about Lola's desperate 20 minute run, except that the camerawork, the editing and the music are so faced paced and compelling that it's easy to forget the desperate situaion Lola and boyfriend Manni find themselves in and just enjoy the ride. After individual segments in which, first, Lola dies and, then, Manni does, we are primed and fully entitled to the fairytale happy ending the third segment brings. This is less Nietzsche' "eternal return" than George Harrison's "with every mistake we must surely be learning."
It is the exhilaration, the downright glee of possibility that keeps us engrossed in this hyperkinetic PoMo fairytale. And that's probably the reason why I so preferred it to FUNNY GAMES. The Haneke movie deliberately breaks from the narrative, tears down the fourth wall--or the moviehouse screen, if you prefer--about 3/4 of the way through. In that grimly violent film, which seems to marching relentlessly to a violently conclusion, this break comes as a real break for the emotionally exhausted viewer. But no sooner, does he break from the action than he picks right back up on it again. This story, he seems to say, HAS to end this way. It may be a fiction, but it must follow its own deadly internal logic.
That was a nihilistic stance if there ever was one. By contrast, RUN LOLA RUN is almost sweetly Romantic. Fates are not sealed here. Fictions, like the real life that informs them, have infinite possibilities. all of which have an internal logic of their own. Third time's a charm for Lola and Manni.
