Eat Your Vegetables: Lola rennt and Dramatic Irony as Love's Performance

Last updated on: June 7, 2012 at 8:30 am by Jonathan Sircy

Eat Your Vegetables: Lola rennt and Dramatic Irony as Love's Performance 2012-06-07T08:30:37-06:00 Jonathan Sircy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

“After the game is before the game.” Sepp Herberger

Lola is a woman who knows what she wants. We see twenty or so minutes of her life. But it happens to be the same twenty minutes three different times, so we think we know her, or can at least make a reasonable guess about what makes her tick.

She wants love. She wants fidelity. And, of course, she wants money.

This movie is conflicted. On the one hand, the movie tells us, “Don’t think. Act.” On the other hand, it shows us that when we don’t think, our actions have horrible consequences.

Example: Manni, Lola’s boyfriend, loses a lot of money . . . that belongs to a gangster . . . that Manni is supposed to meet in twenty minutes. How does he lose the money? He gets off a U-Bahn when he sees some cops enter his car because that’s his natural reaction. Only this time, he’s left the bag. So even as the plot depends on characters acting rather than thinking, we only have a plot because a character acted before he thought.

Or: After calling Lola his lost cash, Manni decides that his only viable option is to rob a local supermarket chain. I won’t spoil the particulars, but it does involve Manni getting caught while robbing a local supermarket chain.

Or: Lola decides her only option is to rob the bank her father works at. It goes as successfully as Manni’s holdup.

The real answer, presented to us in the film’s third installment, is something that never would have occurred to them. This is because it involves something they cannot control.

First, Manni runs into the homeless man who took his money. Second, Lola goes to a casino and wins lots of money. Manni and Lola stumble into these conclusions. They had to be ready, but both events were either serendipitous (when read negatively) or providential (when read positively). They certainly didn’t deserve what happened; neither did they intend for things to work out the way they did.

This gets us closer to the film’s most outlandish feature: that Lola would care about Manni at all.

We don’t see that he’s done anything to deserve it. In fact, he comes off as a selfish, know-nothing errand boy who is guaranteed to be dead in a year or two . . . if he and Lola don’t break up first.

I think the point is that the love Lola gives Manni is undeserved, just like the money they manage to procure in the film’s third section. Importantly, neither Lola nor Manni can explain to the other one why they would stay with each other. They can never see how their actions are indirectly reshaping the rest of their lives. This gets reinforced by one of the film’s coolest stylistic tricks: an incidental character’s future plays out in a series of Polaroid photographs that appear in time with the film’s ubiquitous techno beat. The film thrives on dramatic irony. We get to see the effects of these characters’ decisions. They remain oblivious, smothered by the seemingly contingent details of their quest.

The issue is not money. It’s a moment for Lola and Manni to actualize their abstract conversations about death and love. Love only matters when you perform it. The film thus performs its central theme.

Also, I think that the film is a subtle critique of soccer’s non-sensical rules about tie scores. That’s just a guess though.

Asides

Film

Eat Your Vegetables

Previous Post

June 7, 2012

Mixed Signals: What Your Facebook Likes Say about Jesus

Next Post

June 8, 2012 Not Fit for Dinner: The Wormy War with Iran

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Asides Elsewhere Featured Film Games General Culture Headline Literature Music Of the Moment Podcast Politics RetroPost Sports Technology Television Uncategorized Viral

Select a Month February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz