Run Lola Run
Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt) is an 81 minute German movie by director Tom Tykwer revolving around time and fate.
The theme of time runs all throughout the movie. It opens with a pendulum swinging slowly back and forth. The camera pans up the shaft of the pendulum to reveal a clock. The hands on this clock are moving quickly forward in time as the camera gets closer eventually leading the camera inside a hole in the clock.
Lola is a unique woman with flame red hair and tattoos. Her boyfriend Manni has lost 100,000 Deutschmarks, and is meeting the man who was supposed to get the money in only 20 minutes. It is up to Lola to come up with the money and get it to him before he goes across the street and robs the supermarket.
Lola gets three chance to help Manni. Each scene starts off the same way; however, it is always thrown off by one minor event that changes the outcome of that attempt. Once that attempt has reached its conclusion the movie starts over with the same beginning and shows the next attempt. Each alternative is off from the others by mere seconds. I won’t spoil the ending (because I hope you’ll watch this movie) but I will say, a couple seconds make a huge difference in Lola and Manni’s life.
Every time I watch this movie I think about choices and what control we have over the path we travel. I wonder how timing affects the outcome of my life. It is full of “what if” moments that can change the results of my future. As the trailer for this movies puts it, “every second of every day you make a choice that can change your life. Keep up… or pay the price.”
What choice you’ve made would you change if you had a second chance?
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A couple weeks ago I was on my way to work as usual. As I merged onto the highway, I looked up to see the car in front of me being driven off the road into a ditch full of water. Turns out someone had attempted to change lanes at half their speed, cutting them off. As I drove away I thought about how that could have been me in the ditch. If I had passed the unlucky car at a previous light, or sped up to pass them, I’d be door-handle-deep in rainwater.
I wouldn’t say this was life-changing, but moments like that make me think about life and how many events are tied together. Every choice you make has a ripple effect. But even more than that, our choices stack up together and shape the direction we’re all going.
We don’t live in a society that likes to look at the consequences for our actions but that’s what this movie and this discussion are all about: consequences for actions. I don’t think we can afford to live life as though our decisions don’t matter.
There are often days where I think back and wonder if I had done the littlest thing differently what the impact would have been. For instance when I’m driving to work, on occasion I get stuck in rush hour traffic and I wonder what if I had taken a different route or what if I had left earlier or later, would I be as stressed out about my drive? Often if I had changed my drive though, I would have missed out on something else.
In thinking about my faith, if I had not been raised going to church on Sunday mornings with my family or if I had not been allowed to ask questions about God and the church while I was growing up, I wonder if I would be where I am today in my faith. I walk daily with God as my guide and I don’t think I would have such a strong faith had my life been different. When I was a teen I attended many retreats and camps with the church and Iknow that those had a huge impact on my life, if I hadn’t gone to those I don’t think I would have become a minister. If I went to a different university I wonder if I would have studied different subjects and completed another degree right away.
Really this list could go on and on…
That was a really knowledgeable post. I often find that this topic is complicated to get your head round but you have summed it up really well. You reminded me of a guy I was reading the other day who was really good too.