Run Lola Run

Recently in our Interarts class, we have been doing many readings from Timothy Garrand’s book Writing for Multimedia and the Web, which touches on the many elements writers should focus on while writing for interactive multimedia narratives. The focal points, according to Garrand, are, “the role of the player development, character development, structure, exposition, plot points, scenes, pace and time, and dialogue and other sound” (281). Many video game creators, including those of Mass Effect and Heavy Rain, effectively apply these ideas in the plot line, characters and story construction. When an author is able to effectively use and combine all of these elements while creating an interactive story, their narrative will be much more successful.

The movie, Run Lola Run, is a great example of a film that displays an effective interactive narrative rather than the traditional “linear” plot line. Even though the viewer cannot choose what Lola does in the movie, the director makes cinematic choices that allow the film to mimic an interactive narrative. In the movie, Lola goes through three different “runs.” Each interaction she has with different characters throughout the film effects the outcome of each run. For example, when the punk’s dog bites Lola during her second run, she cannot run as fast. This causes her boyfriend, Manni, to be struck down by an ambulance in the end of the run. In each run, Lola learns which decisions have the better outcome from her prior mistakes, just like a person playing a video game. Even the beginning of the movie sets viewers up for an atmosphere similar to that of a video game, including how the characters are introduced and the animated sequence. 

In an excerpt from Writing for Multimedia and the Web, Lena Maria Pousette, a writer for Voyeur, indentifies three key questions a writer must answer while creating characters for their narrative, “What is the [game’s] objective? Who is the player? And what does the player get to do” (282). Run Lola Run successfully answers all of these in a clear manner. Lola is the player of the “game,” and her objective is to obtain money for Manni to pay debts to his boss, while keeping them both alive. This is why she has three different runs, Lola is not able to achieve her end objective in her first two attempts, so she kept “playing” until she reached her end goal. Also, just like an interactive narrative, each interaction Lola has with another character results in a new path.  This is best illustrated in the quick flash-forwards of the characters’ futures following interaction like the biker, or the woman with the child’s lives. If it was drawn out, the structure of the movie would most likely resemble one of the flow charts Garrand uses as an example in his book.

While Run Lola Run technically is not by definition an interactive narrative, it is a very good example of how a movie could closely achieve this type of narrative.