Compare/Contrast the themes of desire, chance and destiny in the film Run Lola Run and the novel The Death of Vishnu - Essay Example

A Comparison of Desire, Chance, and Destiny In Run Lola Run and The Death of Vishnu Shakespearean plays are always analyzed through comparison of basic elements found in all of the works. Similarly, many works focus upon similar themes or elements such as desire, chance events, and destiny. These three elements prove to be primary forces in two very different stories and media: both in Manil Suri’s The Death of Vishnu and in Tom Tykwer’s film Run Lola Run. Yet despite both works heavily relying upon the incorporation of these elements in their plots, they both manage to do so in very different ways. This paper will analyze the manifestations of these aspects and contrast the effects achieved by these variances. Suri addresses the subject of chance most directly through the meeting of Kavita Arsani with her suitor Pran. Kavita has decided to elope with Salim Jalal, yet meets Pran out of curiosity. This meeting automatically elicits comparison, for even as she and Salim are eloping, she thinks that “Pran would never do such a thing!” (Suri, 130). Yet she is spurred on by sentimentality… the same motive which causes her to leave her duppata with Vishnu. This combination of chance events - the couple’s absence and the girl’s duppata - are what ultimately lead to the community’s suspicions of foul play, which in turn results in the Jalals being attacked. Had Kavita allowed herself to be more swayed by Pran initially (which she proves to have been when she abandons Salim), a significant amount of violence and harsh feelings could have been avoided. Run Lola Run seems to operate significantly on the assumption of chance effecting the course of events, as the movie is divided into three distinct possible outcomes. Yet the sheer randomness of chance is most definitively portrayed in elements of the “And Then” sequences, which roughly happen in each episode. These short flurry of possibilities hinge upon three incidental characters: a woman with a stroller that Lola almost bowls over, a thief with a stolen bicycle, and Ms. Jãger, a secretary at Lola’s father’s bank. The first character is shown with three possible outcomes: child services takes her child and so she steals someone else’s baby, she wins the lottery and the sudden fortune of her family makes front page news, or she finds religion by seeing someone hawking religiously affiliated magazines. The bike thief first gets beaten over the bicycle then meets a woman because of it (and they eventually marry), secondly (presumably) gets beaten for the bicycle before living on the streets as a cutpurse (then OD’s in a public bathroom), and lastly meets the bum who initially found Manni’s money… to whom he makes a quick sale of the bicycle. Interestingly enough, this last option is shot as a normal sequence of the film rather than a flurry of quick stills - perhaps to designate that this will be the ultimate (i.e. final) event for the film. The secretary’s future is first revealed as a car accident, which she is immobilized from and eventually commits suicide because; her second future reveals her becoming involved with the bank teller in a dominatrix capacity. Although the third sequence is not revealed (perhaps to move the film along at this point), it is the only time in which she is named, in passing greeting from Lola’s father. This is significant because it is the only sequence in which he is relaxed enough to think about acknowledging such a common courtesy. Desire is portrayed in much more obvious terms in the film: Lola’s goal is to save her boyfriend from death with the intent of their having an extended future together. This is her main motivation for her every action, and it is because this fails in the first two sequences (in that one of them dies at the end of these first two) that gives the entire movie structure: alternate realities and outcomes are examined repeatedly until one is discovered with an ending satisfactory to the couple. Suri portrays desire of varying degrees in different characters throughout his book, yet the strongest example of it is revealed in the actions of Mr. Jalal. He is an intellectual who sought to expand his wife’s views, especially on the subject of religion. Stymied by her stubborn refusal to question her faith, he eventually questions his own views, eventually yearning to have a religious experience that will both make him religious and draw him closer to his wife. He seeks this experience through fasting and self-denial, eventually going so far as to sleep on the landing next to Vishnu… which is where he has a vision of Vishnu as a god. Seeking to act as Vishnu’s prophet, Mr. Jalal only succeeds in stirring up concern and suspicion. When an angry mob comes to question him about Salim and Kavita’s absence, as well as why Jalal had the girl’s duppata (which he’d taken from Vishnu), Jalal mistakenly chooses this time to try and illuminate the crowd. His desire backfires: the crowd perceives him as mocking the dying Vishnu as well as the Hindu religion itself (the Jalals are Muslim) and become so incensed that they hospitalize Mrs. Jalal with a blow to te head and Mr. Jalal is forced to drop several stories into the courtyard. Yet even as he hangs from the balcony by his finger tips, Mr. Jalal’s desire to have faith struggles with his intellectual habits of analysis. The line “It was doubt, of course, lubricating his fingers insidiously, so they began to slip.” (Suri 271). Summarizes he extent of his desire: he would rather hold onto blind faith to justify the course of events… for it absolves him of much of the responsibility he would otherwise have to accept. Destiny relates to inescapable fate. In the film, Mr. Meyer is fated to crash into a white car in each possible reality: the first two happen directly because of his narrowly missing Lola. The last time, he is slowed because Lola lands on the hood of his car… which means he is able to keep his appointment to pick up Lola’s father and results in the latter’s death when the fated collision is a head-on crash. However, because of this sequence, Lola is able to obtain the money legally and, since Manni recovers his stolen money, means that the couple now have 100,000 marks of their own (besides the moral satisfaction that her philandering father is killed). Destiny in the book is culminated in Vishnu’s achieving his title role: death. Despite his physical incapacitation throughout the book, Vishnu has been a driving force through his effect on other people, his memories, and his out of body experiences. Yet his influence upon the plot has not negated his own purpose of self-realization nor the effort with which he must mount the symbolic heights and reach his final peace. There is ultimately no other destiny available for Vishnu, yet his internal struggle has allowed his physical being to be used as a plot vehicle by the rest of the characters in the novel. Thus the symbology of Vishnu’s film of his life, in which the theater is suddenly empty, proves to be an apt analogy of his influence throughout the book He is alone because “they are near the climax (his death), the movie is almost over.” (Suri 279). Chance has a large role in any sequence of events: the events in the book hinge upon them while the film addresses the very nature of chance and how it effects the possibility of outcome. Desire, always a motivational force, can be all encompassing, but blinding as well: Mr. Jalal chooses to ignore any possible logic that opposes his desire; Lola simply refuses to accept any denial of her desire (the film accommodates this desire and allows her to replay events differently). As for destiny… events may happen differently, yet always move in the same direction. The film destines Lola and Manni to be reunited, for however long, while the book moves towards Vishnu’s eventual demise, with all of the ramifications it may have to the rest of the tenement. Yet through the Hindu nature of reincarnation (Hindu world views having a large role in the book), the novel can be viewed as a single sequence out of a never ending repetition of variance. The people of the tenement are therefore destined to come back into each other’s lives repeatedly and to play out events differently each time. In this way, the novel and film operate in parallel methods, for they both acknowledge that while history repeats, it does not always have the same ending. Works Cited Run Lola Run. Dir. Tom Tykwer. Bavaria Film International,1999. Suri, Manil. The Death of Vishnu. W.W. Norton and Company: New York, 2001. Read More