If you’ve seen this movie, then you know that there are three parallel story sequences which are essentially the same, but all with different consequential outcomes, endings, and side effects.
I enjoyed this movie, but which sequence, if any, is the one that “really” happened? I assume the final sequence is supposed to be the “real” outcome.
However, how does one sequence relate to the other, if only one sequence, especially the final one, “really” happened? My head is spinning.
Are we supposed to just pick whichever sequence we individually like the most, as the “real” one?
Yes, I have considered this possibilty, as well. If they are all “could-haves,” I guess, we just pick whichever one we like as the “real” ending, or just enjoy the show, and never know the “real” ending.
In the game of life, most people don’t have a savegame feature.
Lola does, and she uses it, albeit only half-consciously. Previous play-throughs aren’t quite in her conscious memory, but it’s there implicitly. Notice how she remembers what a safety does, and that great smile at the end of the film when hapless boyfriend asks her what’s in the bag.
This leads me to other conclusions like: if the film hadn’t been edited for time, there would have been about a thousand takes of her losing at the casino she popped into before probability went her way.
Wow, very interesting theory there, Drastic. It does seem plausible. It DOES play through as if she remembers what happened the first time, second time… so basically it’s a twist on the “Groundhog Day” premise…cool
nice interp,** drastic**, pretty much the one i came up with when we saw this movie. loved the movie, loved the soundtrack. i’m not really one for “dance, techno” type of music, but this one was so awesome, that we bought it on CD. DO NOT play this soundtrack in the car. especially DO NOT play this soundtrack really LOUD in the car when you are on the highway. this soundtrack should have a warning on it that reads “WARNING: loud playing of this soundtrack on the highway will probably get you a speeding ticket. producers of soundtrack take no responsibility for loss of driver’s license due to too many speeding tickets.”
“You remember when you played some kind of adventure RPG video game? First time through, you fucked up and got killed? Second time you tried something different, fucked up in a different way and got someone else important killed? Then you got frustrated, went online and downloaded the game’s walkthrus, and not only got the good ending, but was triumphant over several hidden subquests as well? That’s Run Lola Run.”
if that’s the case, i think we have to assume that, until we have actual proof, all three of the segments happened AT THE SAME TIME. since, as has been already pointed out, lola did seem to learn from her past mistakes, we cannot assume that the schrodinger’s cat conumdrum is applicable here. you cannot learn from mistakes that you are currently making. for instance, the first time through, she almost got bit by the dog in the hall. the second time through, she knew the dog was there, and tried to avoid it. had she not already gone through the first scenario, she could not have known the dog was there, and could not have taken steps to avoid it.
One of the things I enjoyed about the film was the increasing implausibility of each sequence. The first you could reasonably see happening, the second was a lot more unlikely and the third completely off-the-wall. If it had been done the other way around, it might have come across as the writer correcting himself rather than as a parallel-universe kind of thing.
BTW, if anyone hasn’t seen this film more than once, I highly recommend it. It’s even better the second time around. And I hardly ever say that about anything.
I think the film was more of a meditation on the possibilities inherent in every moment. Notice all the cuts made during the film on the effects of a moment on the rest of random people’s lives. Such as the quick cut of a couple meeting, falling in love, getting married. They only last a couple of seconds, but they’re interspliced through the whole film. In the next reiteration of the day, where things happen differently, we see these happen differently too.
RUN, LOLA, RUN frenetically pursued all these possiblities at the same time, and boiled it down to a 90 minute movie.
I don’t know about the “learned” aspect of the movie. I saw her actions as different choices she made, not because she learned it from somewhere else. But that’s my interpretation. As far as I know the “learning” may have been the director’s intent.
But we do know that in the “final” outcome she has all the laws of probability on her side. My favorite moment in the film is when she’s betting on the roulette wheel. The shots of the entire casino staring in awe, knowing that something has just happened. Gives me shivers every time I see it.
At any rate, the best way to watch the movie is to be caught up in it.
What version did everybody watch? I chose the dubbed version the first time because I find subtitles usually remove me somewhat from a film. Looking up and down to read subtitles and watch the film results in a series of still images, at least for me. The dubbing wasn’t so bad.
Did anybody catch the LOLA parody on the SIMPSONS? Funniest episode of last season in my opinion.
It seems like there should have been another casino sequence before the one that was shown in the movie. She loses, but now she knows what numbers will come up for the next time. Hitting the exact number even once is almost impossibly unlikely. Twice in a row? Pul-EZE!
The first time I saw it, I opted for the english dubbed version, then later I saw it on HBO in german with english subtitles. I liked the german version better, even though I, too, usually find subtitles distracting.