When it rains in
this movie, it absolutely (and literally) poors. The very first piece of
information we are provided with as the film Blade Runner appears before our
eyes are words describing the setting, because, quite frankly, any viewer would
not have been able to discern this piece of information without the help of
those words. This film could have literally been placed in any country's large
city, or even on another planet - nothing is recognizable. However, the idea of
the future of a place we already know is more likely to interest us; despite
how much absolute chaos surrounds the setting, we can relate to it because we
have known Los Angeles in the past, which allows it to obtain more futuristic
value. Anyway, enough about the first five seconds. Did I even watch this
film? (I did).
The culmination of
scenes had an effect of making me question throughout the entire movie, from
lighting details to dialogue and behavior. It is rung with so many purposeful
contradictions that it made me wonder about life. What is life really, and how
does right compare to wrong in a world I cannot really claim to know? While watching, I wanted Deckard to kill all the replicants one
moment, and I wanted the “evil” Roy to be happy the next. Most of us did not
expect Roy to do what he did – so clearly, we are not good judges of his
personality. But there is the ongoing debate - who can ultimately decide good
or bad? As Roy is chasing after Deckard he questions, “I thought you were
supposed to be good. Aren’t you the good man?” In that moment, I realized I
that I didn’t know which man was good … who really does? A few of the factors
that impact our ability to make ethical decisions include ideas such as emotions,
religion, and our relationships – all of which are included in this film.
We are directly
informed that replicants do not have emotions, what makes us innately human. If
human beings did not have emotions, it would become difficult for us to judge
our actions based on how they would affect others. Replicants can’t feel the sorrows of losing
the ones they love or the disappointment that follows discovering a
heartbreaking truth… but wait, isn’t that exactly what happens in the movie? Roy
is absolutely devastated when Pris’s life has ended and Rachel feels so morose
after her discovery that she is not human that she storms out of the room. It
struck me as contradictory while watching, but, frankly, as these characters
developed emotions, I began to grow increasingly fond of them. I
realized that the less they could feel, the less likely they were to know what
was right. Pris is jumping off walls, shrieking, setting the house on fire when
she dies, but no real emotion is seen – and she’s suddenly finished and it is hard to feel sorrow for her.
The religious
symbolism is my favorite in this one. Some argue that morality and religion are
hand in hand – without the latter the first is nonexistent. Arguably, Scott
thought this while making the film. For example, Zora is holding the snake, the
biblical symbol of temptation – shown completely bare in the film. Not to
mention the last chase between Roy and Deckard, which is brilliantly sculpted
with “heaven and hell,” a clear testament to religion. Who is actually the
judge of humans? Roy unexpectedly becomes the Christ figure in the movie. Deckard
takes a leap of faith in life and misses the destination, about to meet his
death. As he is hanging, Roy says to him, “quite an experience to live in fear.
That’s what it means to be a slave.” We are much too often afraid of taking our
own leaps of faith. Throughout the entire movie, we are frightened and
uncomfortable, slaves to the experience. Nail through hand, Roy literally
“saves” Deckard at the moment of his downfall. In his birthday suit, head
bowed, it is finished as Roy sacrifices himself in a final hoorah, convincing
me that he has loved. At this point, I no longer knew the criteria to judge
which man was good and which was bad, who was right or wrong, which was ethical
or unethical. Perhaps that is to be human, and we can only fight to know the
truth not certainly knowing if we’ve discovered it. I think the film was
designed to make us feel all those feelings of discomfort and uncertainty that
we often try to avoid – it forces us to delve deep within our own psych and
ponder, and it did a great job of doing that for me.
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