Blade Runner
Oct 5, 2017 11:33:49 GMT -8
Post by guttersnipe on Oct 5, 2017 11:33:49 GMT -8
Blade Runner 2049
So as with many sequels/reboot/TV continuations of my favourite films, I maintained a healthy degree of scepticism regarding the sequel to Blade Runner, investigating very little about into the project despite a certainty that I would be seeing it at the earliest opportunity. Those fears weren't exactly allayed by the decidedly action-packed trailer I caught recently nor the knowledge that a key part had been given to a wrestler, and they even lingered a bit into the film itself when I figured that if there was one thing that had to be gotten right by any related product, it was to make the places feel lived in - that element has always been part-and-parcel of any assessment of the original Blade Runner, the feeling of dense claustrophobia, a teeming, uncontrollable mass of people, a huge living space of unacceptable living conditions, the feeling of isolation in a crowd (the source novel takes the opposite tack, emphasising a sparsely-populated world of abandoned tenements, fuelled as it is by the Cold War paranoia of the day rather than the immigration- and globalisation-informed situation of the 80s, which has obviously proved more prescient). After all, it was only a week or so ago that I first saw David Fincher's "Blade Roller" ad for Coca-Cola, which riffs on the sweat, the steam, the neon, the chaos, the darkness, the amorality of Ridley Scott's masterpiece - note that for all of the myriad discussions on the essence of humanity, the ethics of genetic engineering, the likelihood of mass urban decay and the causative issues it engenders, etc, a huge part of the film's impact lies in its hugely-influencial cyberpunk aesthetic.
But once the new blade runner's spinner enters the familiar-yet-different environs of near-future Los Angeles, I absolutely got that Villeneuve was the right guy for the job. The buildings impose and pierce the skyline, the multivarious signs invade all levels of the populace, the vehicles fair rampage through the streets, the multicultural people scurry from place to place in pursuit of temporary highs and (relative) safety from the everyday, and of course, the rain teems down. And all this is key, because I find a great deal of worth in a film that feels like a giant director's playset, that all these locations absolutely had to exist in the way they do, that I believe in the purpose and placing of their inhabitants. If we are to try and understand the motivations and feelings of its protagonists (and antagonists), then we need to ascertain the whys and hows of the way they live.
There was also a part of me that worried about this being somewhat procedural, all about "The Case". Again, the film's opening seems to suggest so, what with a confrontational event between The Cop and The Perp. Thankfully, this once again proves setup, not only opening up the story and thematic thread, but effectively goading the protagonist down the rabbit hole. Gosling's role is a tricky one, inhabiting a character who is supposed to feel familiar whilst deliberately aloof, drip-feeding information as to his emotional state as said thread unravels. I assume his name (SPOILERK / Joe SPOILER) is evocative of Kafka's The Trial, which is only approriate as, like Deckard, he seems to spend his life staggering from one violent and disturbing altercation from the next, rarely getting a purchase onto anything resembling a hope or dream - the modern malaise, if you will. To that end, the film presents its protagonist's curious moral compass via his somewhat unhealthy relationship with the holographic Joi - effectively a gadget, she serves as a humanistic mirror and ersatz lover. When we think of desperate human behaviour, what we truly find disturbing is the notion that whatever this person is doing is on some level relatable, that we may have or will go down that avenue if pushed to a certain extreme. An bleak atmosphere of casual hostility (in both directions) and sheer loneliness would undoubtedly prompt similarly obsessive associations in any viewer.
I'll say little of the thematic meat of the film given the spoilerific nature of it all (I'll leave that for any questions from you guys down the line), but needless to say the findings get to the heart of noir, and illustrate why this particular strain of fiction was able to imprint so on crime fiction. If the nexus (ho ho) of noir is fate, then what really worms the audience under the characters' skin is the feeling that the case may present temptations that might lead to uncomfortable revelations in the characters' psyche, and thereby, human behaviour as a whole. In an inversion of my earlier comment about the Fincher commercial, that element of noir is the real success story of Blade Runner 2049, and magnetises the audience into the spider's web of K's motivations and memories, bridging as it does with that of Deckard and Rachael. Here, it absolutely justifies its existence.
And on a purely qualitative level? Well, the film will certainly find critical retaliation in its steadfast coldness and detachment (the sort of thing that the likes of Pauline Kael were quick to point out highlighted a problem in the theme of assessing humanity (personally, I think the opposite)), as its world is almost universally devoid of genuine emotion and empathy (what sounds like perpetual rape in a neighbouring apartment is routinely ignored), but I think it's testament to the strength of a vision that a picture so anthracitic can still get away with emotional beats when it counts, like when a single flower manages against all odds to snake through a crack in concrete (K's involuntary shuddering at the betrayal of a memory will stay with me forever). Hell, even its more tropeish elements (the psychotic assassin, the underclass uprising) are handled with admirable deftness.
And I obviously can't sign off without bringing up the visuals again. I've only seen one other Villeneuve film so far (Polytechnique), but on this dual strength alone it's clear what he's a real master in the use of locations, and his decisions with mise-en-scene are invariably choice. He emphasises inhumanity with precision (the post-case interrogation doohickey), the crowded buildings heave with ne'er-do-wells so that the contrasting expanse of its abandoned larger structures feel downright alien, the doctor's office feels like a real backstreet vendor, the neon looms large (props for retaining the ATARI logo), Wallace's interiors of watery light feel appropriately enough like a mortal's expensive evocation of grace, there's the awesome power of its desert statues (reflected in the giant Joi 3D billboard), and for a film that left a huge thumbprint on anime, there's a genuinely feeling of that coming full circle and informing the new picture (I'm particularly thinking of the melancholy inherent in the puddles below the urban squalor - very Ghost in the Shell). But very occasionally it even taps into that elusive state which I typically reserve for Kubrick - awe. Whilst it may not boast a moment that vies with the original Blade Runner's opening slow zoom across the skyline, it has a bloody good go. A sequel worthy of the name.
So as with many sequels/reboot/TV continuations of my favourite films, I maintained a healthy degree of scepticism regarding the sequel to Blade Runner, investigating very little about into the project despite a certainty that I would be seeing it at the earliest opportunity. Those fears weren't exactly allayed by the decidedly action-packed trailer I caught recently nor the knowledge that a key part had been given to a wrestler, and they even lingered a bit into the film itself when I figured that if there was one thing that had to be gotten right by any related product, it was to make the places feel lived in - that element has always been part-and-parcel of any assessment of the original Blade Runner, the feeling of dense claustrophobia, a teeming, uncontrollable mass of people, a huge living space of unacceptable living conditions, the feeling of isolation in a crowd (the source novel takes the opposite tack, emphasising a sparsely-populated world of abandoned tenements, fuelled as it is by the Cold War paranoia of the day rather than the immigration- and globalisation-informed situation of the 80s, which has obviously proved more prescient). After all, it was only a week or so ago that I first saw David Fincher's "Blade Roller" ad for Coca-Cola, which riffs on the sweat, the steam, the neon, the chaos, the darkness, the amorality of Ridley Scott's masterpiece - note that for all of the myriad discussions on the essence of humanity, the ethics of genetic engineering, the likelihood of mass urban decay and the causative issues it engenders, etc, a huge part of the film's impact lies in its hugely-influencial cyberpunk aesthetic.
But once the new blade runner's spinner enters the familiar-yet-different environs of near-future Los Angeles, I absolutely got that Villeneuve was the right guy for the job. The buildings impose and pierce the skyline, the multivarious signs invade all levels of the populace, the vehicles fair rampage through the streets, the multicultural people scurry from place to place in pursuit of temporary highs and (relative) safety from the everyday, and of course, the rain teems down. And all this is key, because I find a great deal of worth in a film that feels like a giant director's playset, that all these locations absolutely had to exist in the way they do, that I believe in the purpose and placing of their inhabitants. If we are to try and understand the motivations and feelings of its protagonists (and antagonists), then we need to ascertain the whys and hows of the way they live.
There was also a part of me that worried about this being somewhat procedural, all about "The Case". Again, the film's opening seems to suggest so, what with a confrontational event between The Cop and The Perp. Thankfully, this once again proves setup, not only opening up the story and thematic thread, but effectively goading the protagonist down the rabbit hole. Gosling's role is a tricky one, inhabiting a character who is supposed to feel familiar whilst deliberately aloof, drip-feeding information as to his emotional state as said thread unravels. I assume his name (SPOILER
I'll say little of the thematic meat of the film given the spoilerific nature of it all (I'll leave that for any questions from you guys down the line), but needless to say the findings get to the heart of noir, and illustrate why this particular strain of fiction was able to imprint so on crime fiction. If the nexus (ho ho) of noir is fate, then what really worms the audience under the characters' skin is the feeling that the case may present temptations that might lead to uncomfortable revelations in the characters' psyche, and thereby, human behaviour as a whole. In an inversion of my earlier comment about the Fincher commercial, that element of noir is the real success story of Blade Runner 2049, and magnetises the audience into the spider's web of K's motivations and memories, bridging as it does with that of Deckard and Rachael. Here, it absolutely justifies its existence.
And on a purely qualitative level? Well, the film will certainly find critical retaliation in its steadfast coldness and detachment (the sort of thing that the likes of Pauline Kael were quick to point out highlighted a problem in the theme of assessing humanity (personally, I think the opposite)), as its world is almost universally devoid of genuine emotion and empathy (what sounds like perpetual rape in a neighbouring apartment is routinely ignored), but I think it's testament to the strength of a vision that a picture so anthracitic can still get away with emotional beats when it counts, like when a single flower manages against all odds to snake through a crack in concrete (K's involuntary shuddering at the betrayal of a memory will stay with me forever). Hell, even its more tropeish elements (the psychotic assassin, the underclass uprising) are handled with admirable deftness.
And I obviously can't sign off without bringing up the visuals again. I've only seen one other Villeneuve film so far (Polytechnique), but on this dual strength alone it's clear what he's a real master in the use of locations, and his decisions with mise-en-scene are invariably choice. He emphasises inhumanity with precision (the post-case interrogation doohickey), the crowded buildings heave with ne'er-do-wells so that the contrasting expanse of its abandoned larger structures feel downright alien, the doctor's office feels like a real backstreet vendor, the neon looms large (props for retaining the ATARI logo), Wallace's interiors of watery light feel appropriately enough like a mortal's expensive evocation of grace, there's the awesome power of its desert statues (reflected in the giant Joi 3D billboard), and for a film that left a huge thumbprint on anime, there's a genuinely feeling of that coming full circle and informing the new picture (I'm particularly thinking of the melancholy inherent in the puddles below the urban squalor - very Ghost in the Shell). But very occasionally it even taps into that elusive state which I typically reserve for Kubrick - awe. Whilst it may not boast a moment that vies with the original Blade Runner's opening slow zoom across the skyline, it has a bloody good go. A sequel worthy of the name.