I found that Run Lola Run made great use of Maya Deren’s point about the reversion of time and how, if the technique is used within a film, it is most generally meant to undue time.  Run Lola Run took that concept and really ran with it.  As demonstrated by the multiple playthroughs of events, it felt as if Lola was a video character who was being reset until the best outcome occurred.  I felt that it was also a great film to demonstrate the idea of learning from your mistakes as seen by how Lola slowly corrects herself through trial and error, albeit supernaturally.

We see that these corrections also have positive affects for other people as well.  We see that her father ultimately decides that the best option is to put off talking about the baby with his mistress instead of completely abandoning his family altogether.  The woman with the carriage eventually turns from being a person who steals children to a woman who finds religion, becoming a child of a being that is greater than her; becoming one who steals to one who is found.  We see that the woman who works at the banks goes from ending her life to starting a new one with the bank clerk.  These are examples of how chaos theory is also weaved into the film via butterfly affect.  Despite Lola’s father being injured in the car crash with Ronnie, no one left the final run-through any worse than they did initially, highlighting the fact that Lola’s presence may have some magical control over how time mechanisms work.  I found that due to the short time frame of the runs, it was incredible how just small moments of interaction could send ripples through the timestream.

To note however, the music never quite changes from run to run.  It is the same techno beat used each time with slight variances in the soundtrack as she visits different places each run.  The three key places she visits that are different each run are the Grocery Store, the Bank, and then the Casino.  Each having their own symbolic variances as well.  The grocery store is the cheapest place to find the 100,000 marks, the Bank the most wealthy place, and the Casino the most probable place.  What sets the Casino above the Bank in terms of affluence is that at the Bank, one can only withdraw however much money that have there whereas at the Casino, the men and women there most likely each had enough to replace the 100,000 marks, and they were just gambling it away, thus making it the best choice Lola could have corrected.

What commentary Tykwer is making about the correction of time and the legal robbing of the rich via Gambling is amiss to me, but, there is something there, I just need to run it through my mind a few more times until I can find out what it is…