Film Studies II - Run Lola Run (Reupload)

            Run Lola Run is a 1998 German thriller film written and directed by Tom Tykwer, and starring Franka Potente as Lola and Moritz Bleibtreu as Manni. The story follows a woman who needs to obtain 100,000 Deutsche Mark in twenty minutes to save her boyfriend's life. The film's three scenarios are reminiscent of the 1981 Krzysztof Kieślowski film Blind Chance; following Kieślowski's death, Tykwer directed his planned film Heaven. Run Lola Run’s plot order differs from the basic narrative order and instead has one story retold three times with different outcomes.

            Editing is one of the most fundamental yet crucial steps in the making and overall appearance or quality of the film. Based on my analysis, in film post production can change the entire mood and feeling of the movie itself, part of this by contributed in editing which the film has used edits, dissolves, fades, wipes, etc. The filmmaker uses fast fragmented cuts to incorporate suspense, it’s added by constantly changing the shot this causes the viewer to become captivated and an unknowing of the next cut. The filmmaker bends the time-space continuum to create a unique plot style in the film, the same situation had run three times in each retelling Lola had chosen different procedures to acquire the hundred thousand dollar before noon. Speed was essential to the audience’s interest; this was represented in the short fast cuts each shot was no longer than a few seconds but when edited together provided much coverage in the scene these screenshots were no longer more than 10 seconds between each other when editing it together represents the filmmaker’s symbolic appreciation of speed while also being visually appealing.

The repeated scenes between the beginnings of the three runs, for example Lola running past her mother then out of the house, and then the animation sequence of her running down the stairs are the same, showing that Lola has restarted another run. Freeze frames are also used to shows the people that Lola encounters on the street while running. They are given as an images to the audience to show some sections of their life. In each time when Lola runs with different choices, the peoples’ life was also changed. Moreover, in the film continuity editing are used, in the first scene we have the character looking at something off screen, then straight cut to showing what he or she sees, then showing the audience reaction of the character based on the POV of the character.

In conclusion, Run Lola Run is an outstanding action/thriller genre film because of the basic application of different yet exact conventions of film editing. By using the fast-paced editing techniques is expected as the action is concurrent and the element of time matters. Keeping the audience in action by incorporating the feeling of suspense, for the audience doesn’t know what comes next. The editing was effectively used to tie together the moments when the filmmaker bent the time-space continuum.