Run Lola Run Analysis

[Justyn Huang]

The scene in “Run Lola Run”, in the very beginning starting with the phone call to her boyfriend, up until the point she starts to run I felt, conveyed a tone of urgency and helped build towards the theme of the movie. The movie has a theme that says something about how every little second counts, and how differently an outcome will play when you miss just a split second of an event.

First of all, you can feel the sense of urgency just in the background music playing. It has a very fast beat to it that makes the scene seem like it’s in a race. Additionally, the conversation that Lola and her boyfriend are having about the money and how she didn’t show up, shows how they got into that predicament. He says once in the conversation to Lola, “But you weren’t there” and because she wasn’t there, the whole scheduled plan played out differently. Because it played out differently, it helped contribute to the theme of the story.
The theme of the story of how every little second counts can be seen in the cinematography and editing. First of all the establishing shot of the whole movie is of a clock. Obviously they wouldn’t show a clock in the movie if it didn’t have any importance. Not only that, but when Lola throws the phone, it cuts to different close ups of the phone flying through the air which, in a way, puts a spotlight showing how that one action could be one of the many small things that can happen which may change the outcome of an event. That edit jumping from a far away shot up closer, and closer just emphasizes the importance of that small, little event which may seem insignificant but may actually hold great importance in the future – something that does get portrayed later in the film. This tone of urgency is portrayed through editing when the camera moves in for a close-up of Lola as she “thinks” of someone to get money from. The word “think” is repeated many times and also it has a jump cut from one pose of her in distress, to another. Which just shows how badly she needs to do something. Straight after she does this thinking, the camera revolves around her as people flash through her head. The flashing of people come and go in split seconds which give a sense of time and that there is very little of it to be wasted.

So that’s how the tone of urgency and theme is conveyed in that one beginning scene from the film “Run Lola Run”.