Overall, I enjoyed watching Bladerunner. It was a nice balance of action, sci-fi, and philosophy.
Eyes
I did notice that there were a lot of shots focused on eyes throughout the film, primarily with replicants. At first, I did not think much of the shots, but then I realized that they felt very synthetic. For example, towards the beginning where Leon is being questioned, his eyes go really wide, but he never blinks. I noticed this later with the other replicants, even Rachel. Replicants always stare into the camera, but never blink; the only movement from their eyes is when they are either looking around or they get wide with surprise. Another small detail is the orange circle around the pupils of the replicants when it is dark, an eerie way of reminding the viewer that they are machines.
Fear, Love, and Confusion
Rachel registers the emotions of fear, love, and confusion in the film as seen through our main character, Deckard. Initially, after Deckard finds out that Rachel is a replicant, he expresses fear. This is because it took over 100 questions for him to be able to identify her as a replicant, when it would normally only take around 20, suggesting that Rachel is far more human than any prior replicants; she's practically human. Later, Deckard begins to fall in love with Rachel. Even though she is a machine, she still displays a lot of human characteristics, allowing for a relationship between the two. However, this relationship would ultimately leave Deckard in confusion. After Deckard destroys the first of the four loose replicants, he says "three left," but then his imployer responds, "no, four left," indicating that he is to destroy Rachel as well. This creates conflict within Deckard as he has fallen in love with the cyborg, however, he has to remember that she is still a machine and has to be destroyed like the others, leading to a very open-ended conclusion of the film. I guess the point was to leave the audience with a sense of confusion.
~Ryan Lantz
Comments
Post a Comment