Wk 1 Q3: Narrative, Play and Interaction in Run Lola Run (RLR)

Like a computer game, RLR constraints the range of our responses in its attempt to establish interactivity by pretending to listen, think and speak. Because of the pointedness of the plot, it makes it hard for us to think in other ways and inevitably, after seeing the first version, we would feel sad for the couple and wish that the ending had been slightly different. Then the movie pretentiously “listens” to our desires, “thinks” of a new plot and “speaks” to us through the second version of the plot. It is only after the third version where there is a happy ending, the movie “senses” a catharsis within us and decides that it is the best state to leave us in and concludes the story.

What I feel is that in this case, there is a great play on the narrative since the producers toyed with the discourse of Lola’s story within the limits of audience understanding through its very unique concept of mimicking a video game.

w.r.t. the concept of transcoding, RLR is a perfect example coz the structure of the movie (cultural layer) has been influenced by structure computer games (computer layer). Instead of the normal head to tail format of a movie, RLR presents us with 3 possibilities of the same situation, with only one having a happy ending. Just like in computer games (where we don’t stop playing until we get to a desired ending), the movie seems to attempt to achieve a perfect ending, which it eventually gets after failing twice.