Genre Analysis of Run, Lola, Run

Run Lola Run shows real love between Lola and Manni; the movie shows Manni and Lola in the midst of a relationship already, and then throws them into a test of loyalty. Rather than going through the typical courting phase, Lola and Manni are introduced when Lola wants to break it off with Manni in her death scene. It is only then that Lola realizes the importance of their relationship and wants to fight to remain together; they triumph in the final run and remain together.

Comedy appears in Lola’s third run, which transitions from the catastrophes of the first runs, in which she and Ronnie are killed in accidents, is the ideal situation. Manni gets his money for his boss, and Lola wins more money than Ronnie needed, so she and Manni have resources to continue their relationship.

The tragedy in this film is the repeated failed runs, leading to Lola and Manni’s deaths. Lola begins with determination to help Ronnie to save him from his boss, but only ends up getting them both killed for her efforts. Her ideal outcome is snatched away in both failed runs, regardless of how hard she tried to achieve her goal, and usually because of unavoidable accidents, which further emphasized the break from the ideal to the “real” situation.

The unavoidable situations are also exampling of irony and embellishment; the way Lola’s actions influence the futures of the characters around her in different ways for each run show dramatic irony. But it is also ironic that the chaos of the coincidences rules the outcomes of Lola’s runs.

Works Cited

Run Lola Run. Dir. Tom Tykwer. Perf. Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu. Columbia TriStar Home Video, 1999. Film.

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. New York: Garland Pub., 1999. Print.