Blade Runner

"Blade Runner" is a film that may be included easily in the genre of science fiction, but also a brilliant work of black film and the other side of romance, because first of all I think it's a love story. I refer not only to the plot of Deckard and Rachel, if not to the replicants with life. Below or above depending how you look, all that dark atmosphere is one of the most romantic movies I've ever seen. In addition, the lyricism that shows us all that amalgam of sensations and feelings make "Blade Runner" can be considered almost a poem, beautiful, beautiful love story maravilloso.Esa it serves to discuss the recurring theme of the Movie: humanity. One of the elements of a human being is fear, and is also one of the keys used by the film. Remember the words of the character Roy Batty tells Deckard when it is hanging from a beam in a vacuum: "It's quite an experience to live in fear, right? That's what it means to be a slave." It relates only to the slave who has been in the colonies, if that is not there, who harbors feelings and needs that can not omit, to which you want answers to their questions, which "feels itchy and can not scratch" as I said Leon.

And also, on the other hand, refers to everyone because everyone is afraid, afraid to die, not live as we hope, fail, etc ... we have many fears that we burn inside and to which is sometimes needed to rebel.

Roy rebels against his creator, Tyrrel, a metaphor of man and God. Roy goes in search of answers and helps his father almighty to solve what he so worried. When they fail confronts him and kills him, hence the apotheosis scene in which Roy looks up from the elevator crashed into a confused expression becoming aware of what he has done but God epic feeling momentarily. But that feeling is diluted when she returns to find his beloved dead. Beautiful scene where he closes his mouth with a kiss, as one closes the eyes of a dead and embarks on his revenge with war paint is the blood of it. But finally understands that it can kill a person because that is where what we really love: life. Thus, accepts his fate in that marvelous final monologue is considered one of the best scenes in movie history. He exhales and soul expires heaven like a dove. And that is the great love story to which I referred, the largest of all the couples that come in the film.

But this is not the only way "Blade Runner" tells us about humanity. It also makes it through memory, wondering what is real and what is not? And how can we know? The memories are unique and exclusively ours and we can not know if they are true or false memories because they are personal, ie subjective. There is nothing that we can ensure that we live what we remember. And realize that our life is a lie, that we remember nothing really happened, none of what we think we feel at some point, love, hate, unforgettable experiences ... must be very hard to realize this and accept it. The replicants have to. But there is a scene that shows him in full, when Deckard confesses to Rachel that she is a replicant. The other element that is used for this purpose is morality, which, as I noted earlier, allegorically compares with religious questions, to use also the discussion of genetic manipulation and artificial intelligence, their advantages, disadvantages, and especially their limits.

The aesthetics of the film is the perfect, ideal symbiosis between form and content. Of note is the soundtrack of Vangelis, which gives the film an incredible emotional power, both in moments of action and, particularly, in the most thoughtful and romantic scenes. But if something has made "Blade Runner" in the work of worship, apart from the philosophical twists of its plot, is the visual aspect. This design and style has been copied then in almost all science fiction films that followed, including some of the great titles of the genre as "Terminator," "Total Recall," "Strange Days" (the culmination of cyberpunk), " Minority Report ", etc ... In fact, not an exaggeration to say that all science fiction films from 1982 to now comes from" Blade Runner ".

They say that during the filming Ridley Scott took a photograph of the painting "Nighthawks" by the painter Edward Hopper, an artist who reflected the loneliness better than anyone in modern environments and purely American, to teach the computer to show the atmosphere he wanted for the film. When I heard this story for the first time I was not surprised at all because I've always thought that "Nighthawks" is a picture that conveys the feeling very well surround you breathe between the pages of classic crime novels, to give an example of my beloved Raymond Chandler and Philip Marlowe detective. In fact, there Deckard who compares with Marlowe, but I see quite contradictory at best be closer to Sam Spade in Dashiell Hammett.

The painting "Nighthawks" by Edward HopperSea as Scott managed to capture the atmosphere of black cinema. There are several black flat typical of the genre really are beautiful, and in those who smoke snuff has a great visual presence (always bring personality to the character), or wild scene (not in that scene if there are more explicit violence or underground ) in which Deckard kisses Rachel for the first time lighted by horizontal beams cross the blind holes.

All that we need dressing with a futuristic setting where everything is mixed, predominantly a tendency for black clothing and certain characteristic features of what would later be known as cyberpunk. It is even probable that the novels of great writers like William Gibson cyberpunk (author of "Johnny Mnemonic", later adapted into a movie) or Pat Cadigan were greatly influenced by the universe "Blade Runner". That mix is ​​reflected in several scenes in which we can see that there are no races or pure cultures (perhaps there is some irony with some winks towards Nazism and characteristic elements of Germanic culture Tecero Reich) and even to be a good cop should know how to speak a jargon called Interlingua, which is nothing more than "a hodgepodge between French, English, Italian, Spanish and whatever." "Blade Runner" gives us a vision of the future really is not as far as we can see now increasingly multicultural.

It has also been copied ad nauseum that permanent nightlife, where days are short and light single sunsets that only last a few hours and the rest is night in all its essence, imbued with neon lights (street stalls and above all that impressive ad giant planes into buildings) and invaded by people who probably do not know where to go (one of those mysteries of human nature that are discussed in the film). It also shows that almost always raining (which also has been copied a lot, as in "Seven", the most famous), all feared consequence of climate change. It shows some future marginal (main feature of cyberpunk) in the urban map that show, for example with the electronic animal market where it is impossible to know if a snake is true or false.

The story is based on a novel by Philip K. Dick, whose work is characterized by futuristic intrigue frames under which manifests sail often related to the riddles of human nature. Although in this case the freedoms that are taken for the original work, called "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Are quite extensive. Are subliminal and basic ideas of the work of Dick, but the plot, characters and atmosphere differ considerably from the original text. However, the few times that an insult to a literary work in its film adaptation leads to a site further enhanced by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples especially.

Earlier I mentioned to Fritz Lang and just think of this filmmaker has a lot of "Blade Runner". In the German classical and futuristic dystopia appeared that one of the films is emblematic of expression, two essential elements in this film. The first of them also tried the famous George Orwell Big Brother in his novel "1984." That eye is also omnipresent in the "Blade Runner" by Ridley Scott from a very special way. Not only are countless planes where the eye is highly relevant if not also one of the first planes of the film is an eye whose pupil reflect fires (¿of hell?) Of the exterior of the Tyrrel Corporation. Gaff's character also can be a personification of that Big Brother, as throughout the film we see Deckard keeps constantly monitored. Of the latter we can draw is that if you watch because Deckard is a replicant used by police and Gaff is like your secret supervisor, rewarding his pupil with a treat at the end of a job well done: the figure of the unicorn ( which is assumed as a sign of leeway to escape but also a revelation).

In this regard have been circulated over the years many theories about the origin of Deckard and doubt about whether or not a replicant. In response to this the director's left in the early nineties. There are several different assemblies, but the best known are the Director's Cut and the Domestic Cut. The differences are that the Director's Cut eliminates the protagonist's voice-over he had in the Domestic Cut (version released in 1982), suppression of the epilogue (hence the film ends when the elevator doors closed with Deckard and Rachel inside) and the inclusion of a plane in the scene where Deckard is in his apartment playing the piano. The plane in question is a dream of Deckard with pictures of a unicorn and is the key to end the figurine that Gaff leaves assume a final revelation that Deckard is a replicant himself. The only pro is the Director's Cut that closes all doubts, but he has countered that by suppressing the voice-over Deckard loses the character of depth, much more besides looking scoundrel. In addition, some think, myself included, that the ambiguities that left the Domestic Cut are an additional attraction for the film.

As I always say with big movies like this, it is impossible to summarize all that is true of "Blade Runner" in a few lines. Especially being a very thoughtful film and very complete in all respects. A poem of supernatural beauty to be remembered. And if, as is encouraged in the film, we fear that our memories are not real it is best that we make sure and come back to see her again. Our eyes to enjoy.