Term Paper on "Run Lola"

Term Paper 5 pages (1566 words) Sources: 0 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Run Lola Run is constructed of motifs that symbolize the human relationship to the passage of time. Running is the most pervasive motif of the movie, but clocks, spinning wheels, shattering glass, screams, and also the color red are equally as important to Run Lola Run. Lola's (Franka Potente) bright red hair evokes themes like frustration, passion, intense physical energy, blood, and the fire of desire. Red is the color of the telephone Lola uses at home when she talks to Manni. The ambulance and the Bolle store sign are red too. As an ambulance color, red denotes emergency and the urgency of Lola's situation. Like Lola, ambulances rush because every second counts when a human life is on the line. Red is also the color of traffic lights and stop signs. Traffic lights cannot stop time; they only prevent people from moving. Yet the only thing Lola cannot do in the movie is stop: she is constantly on the run, racing against time.

In the opening sequence of Run Lola Run, a narrator asks a series of existential questions finished by the worldly wisdom of a soccer referee who says, "The game will last 90 minutes. That's all we know. Anything else is pure theory." Likewise, Lola and Manni's game only lasts 20 minutes. That's all they know, and anything either or both of them can do during those 20 minutes will determine their future. Because time is of the essence, Lola cannot afford to obey the rules. She becomes consumed with saving Manni and is willing to go to any extent to succeed.

Lola's fire engine red hair signifies her fiery temperament. At several key moments in the film her piercing screams cause glass to shatter, another key motif in Run Lola Run. Shattering glass symbolizes being at the breaking point or experiencing a mental breakdown. However, Lola harnesses her intense emotions. She uses her scream as a means to gather her power and focus her attention on her goals. When she visits her father at the bank in the first sequence of the film, Lola screams and shatters glass to get his attention. She also throws her father's things, breaking them into pieces in the second sequence. Her father then calls her "crazy," another word for "cracked up."

Shards of broken glass also correspond to the various fragments of reality that unfold during the three different sequences in the film. Fragmented memories, flashbacks, and flash-forwards are all symbolized by shattered glass. Moreover, the split-screen used for the seconds before Lola meets Manni depicts reality as a set of fragments. Each person experiences reality differently, and time remains the only absolute rule of the game.

The large pane of glass does not shatter in the first or third sequence because the ambulance stops just in the nick of time. However, the ambulance cannot stop on time in the second sequence, shattering the huge commercial pane all over the sidewalk. By stopping, the ambulance also ends up on a different trajectory. It hits and kills Manni in the second sequence, just after a red car passes by.

Tom Tykwer uses a red filter to distinguish the flashback from the present moment. The color red is therefore more than symbolic in Run Lola Run. Red becomes a functional tool for the director. Tykwer uses red as well as black-and-white and grainy filters to alert the viewer to shifts in time. Even so, red remains the color of passion because the couple is shown during an intimate moment in bed through a red filter. Lola and Manni share their deepest fears when they are shown in bed, but through the red filter. The color red also links together the disparate motifs in Run Lola Run including the telephone, the ambulance, Lola's hair, and stop lights.

Tykwer also uses the spinning motif in Run Lola Run. Just as red connotes the central themes of passion and emergency, spirals and spinning wheels correspond to the perpetual motion that characterizes Run Lola Run. Lola dashes down several flights of stairs on a spiral staircase in her apartment complex. Car wheels turn around and around, depicting a body in motion. The roulette wheel in the third sequence becomes a powerful symbol too, enabling Lola to make the money she needs. Interestingly, the number 20 Lola selects is black, not red, on the wheel. Lola breaks free of the cycle of intense frustration set in motion by her being too late to meet Manni and black signifies a break from the redness that plagues Lola.

The hands of a clock also move around and around, and clock faces are most often round. A clock is the ultimate symbol of time, a main theme of Run Lola Run. Lola continually glances at clocks, knowing that she has only 20 minutes to meet Manni. With purpose and intent, Lola chose the number 20 on the roulette wheel too. Her action signified her confident control of time: Lola's determination to beat the clock. At the beginning of the film during their phone conversation, Manni suggested that Lola always feels she can fix everything. Lola eventually conquers reality, time, and even death. She wills the roulette wheel with her impassioned scream.

The spiral symbol appears at other points in the movie, such as the spiral print on the sheets shown during the red-filtered bedroom shot. Running in circles and caught in a spiral of events also correspond to the occasional use of spiraling camera pans. The symbol of the circle also appears during the first sequence, when Lola and Manni are surrounded, encircled, by policy.

Being late was what set the chain of events in motion, and Lola sets out to remedy her error by rushing against the clock. Lola must make it to Manni "under the gun," too. Guns appear as symbols of power in Run Lola Run. They are phallic and therefore symbols of masculine power. Guns give Manni the power to hold up the store, Lola power over the security guards and her father, and Manni to intimidate the homeless man into giving back the bag of money.

Camera angles are judiciously used to convey conditions of haste and urgency, intimacy, and confrontation. Cranes and dollies are often used to correspond with the intense motion and running that characterizes the movie. Camera angles can be used symbolically too. For instance, long shots like those of corridors and long city streets suggest the linearity of time. They show how long Lola has come, or how far she has to go. The long shots using wide angles also offer the audience an overview of the events unfolding. Wide angle shots serve a similar function as an omniscient narrator, depicting events from a universal perspective. To provide a more comprehensive overview of the situation, Tykwer also incorporates some overhead bird's eye shots into the production. For instance, when Manni is hit by the red ambulance n the second sequence, a bird's eye shot shows his body splayed on the street.

Some of the bird's eye views allow Tykwer to show off his appreciation for mis-en-scene using artistic elements like line and color in the shot. For example, Lola is shown running in a diagonal line across a city square. Cutting across the rectangular paving stones symbolizes Lola's cutting across barriers of social convention, rules, and time.

Diagonal lines appear and reappear in Run Lola Run such as the shot of the clock, the red Bolle sign, and the cube decoration on the building. The yellow phone booth Manni uses offers another opportunity to use a wide-angle shot to illustrate intersecting diagonal lines. Perpendicular lines intersect frequently on screen during street scenes. The car crash scenes in the first two sequences show the white and black car colliding at a perpendicular… READ MORE

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