Run, Lola, Run – Tom Tykwer wrote and directed this intense, dazzling, unbreathievable 81-minute movie (1999, German, subtitles). The ball is round; the game is on. At home Lola (Franka Potente), the daughter of a banker, receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), who’s in a phone booth. He tells her that in twenty minutes he will be a dead man because by then his mobster boss will expect to receive 100,000 DM (pre-euro, about $60,000) from a contraband deal.

Lola is partly to blame because she failed to show up when expected, though she explains that on her way to meet him her moped was stolen. After Lola didn’t appear, Manni got onto a subway train, but in a freak encounter with a bum, he and the bag of money were separated. He tells Lola that if she can’t help him he will hold up a department store across the street to get the money. Lola races off to save Manni. (As she rushes out the door, the TV in the room with her mother depicts her as a red-headed cartoon figure hurtling down the stairway).

Then begins this Memento-like thriller’s three scenarios pulsing to a catchy techno beat. Are these supposed to be three versions of reality from which Lola can chose? Is she somehow experiencing her existence in parallel multiverses? (Subtle connections thread through the scenarios while most events take different twists, spinning out this vertiginous spiral; in the final scenario – pay close attention – the moped thief gets his comeuppance, and the bank security guard is the patient in the ambulance). The world is round, and love is on. There are two other scenes interspersing the first two scenarios in which Lola and Manni are recumbent in bed. In the first Lola asks Manni how he knows she’s the girl for him; he tells her his heartfelt feelings have convinced him. She seems uncertain of his assurance and must make a decision.

In the second scenario Manni tells Lola that if he were to die she’d take up with the next attractive, smooth talker she meets. She denies this and says, besides, he’s not dead. Philosophy and psychology get mixed up in this suspenseful story. Perhaps Lola is only running these scenarios through her mind as she attempts to evaluate her relationship with Manni. Can she trust him? Is she trustworthy? How much is she willing to sacrifice for his sake? Is there a miracle to aid her when she most needs one? Life begins after it’s over.

Variation on a theme of Tom Tykwer: When Lola asks her boyfriend how he knows she’s the only girl for him, I experienced an epiphany. Not that I hadn’t thought of any of this before, but the connection startled me after all of my recent reading. The scene seemed to speak directly to me, even though the communication I seemed to receive probably was not Tom Tykwer’s intention in his film. How can anyone know from all the millions of possible mates, partners, spouses on this planet which will be most compatible? Can we rely upon destiny, coincidence, the hand of fate to find our soul mate? Is there only one other person in the world meant for us, as Plato suggests; or are there multiple, interchangeable partners with whom we could establish a loving relationship? Do such factors as ethnicity, age, education, intelligence, physical attractiveness, religion, nationality, etc., delimit the possibilities of whom we will encounter in life?

Next let us consider that relationships of love can provide us with some understanding of relationships of spiritual devotion. Monogamy could be associated with any of the monotheistic religions. A bachelor who experiments with numerous partners but never settles into one lasting partnership could be seen as agnostic. An atheist, therefore, is a confirmed, celibate bachelor, in effect a monk without a deity. For someone convinced that monogamy is the only path to connubial bliss, is it likely that his/her beloved would be someone residing on another continent, who speaks a different language, who would in all or most other aspects be different from her/himself? Isn’t the likelihood far greater that one would expect to find a mate who is much like oneself in age, culture, nationality, etc.?

Doesn’t this fact of human nature suggest that one’s preference for a version of spiritual devotion would be more readily available nearby than distance and foreign? For example, since I was born a Caucasian in the United States of Christian, monogamous parents, would it be surprising that I would marry a Caucasian woman born in the United States of Christian, monogamous parents? Of course not. But if I were to have married an Arab female in Syria of a Muslim, polygamous father, that certainly would have raised some eyebrows along with many questions and doubts about our having a successful marriage. Therefore, how likely or unlikely would it be for a child of Christian parents to find a preference for Christianity? Obviously far more likely than for that child to want to become a Sufi or a Buddhist or a Muslim or a Jew or any other member of a belief system when old enough to make a choice.

This fact suggests that any religion will conform more to the individual’s make-up than vice versa: God is created in the likeness of His people. Unless one remains convinced that providence will direct one to the perfect soul mate, faith in predestination, then one must accept that there are many possible candidates for a partner. That being the case, how much should one trust or put trust in another? How much should any of us be willing to sacrifice for a spouse if another one may be available around the corner? The longer the relationship endures, the more shared experiences, the greater the mutual respect and affection, the easier that question is to answer. (None of this takes into account the presence of children).

The point I’m making isn’t so much about an temporal affair as it is about a spiritual union. Religions are like languages with which we communicate our hopes and fears as human beings. There isn’t one religious tongue. The world’s religions speak in tongues, a cacophony of them. This is why science, especially physics, has a tremendous advantage over religion: physics speaks in one language – mathematics. One can become a physicist in any ethnicity, in any country, regardless of one’s native language, so long as one possesses a sufficient intellectual acumen and aptitude coupled with an appropriate education. But most people reject science as a calling for themselves, just as the Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah, because science and mathematics are hard, demanding subjects that do not conform to an individual’s predilections and prejudices.       

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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