Blade Runner 2049
Chosen by me because I like to go to the cinema a lot.
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| This poster is fucking terrible for such a pretty movie |
Denis Villeneuve is an interesting director, who had put out some interesting films. Enemy was a terrific mood piece, deeply unsettling but may hold the key to why I did not like his Blade Runner sequel.
Gosling and Ford share space up there on that poster but this is Gosling's movie through and through.
Ford is pretty great revisiting yet another of his iconic roles from decades ago, as is almost his entire stock in trade now, but is on the margins of the film, mentioned early but not appearing for quite some time of the lengthy running total the film has.
Deakins, one of the only cinematographers to routinely be mentioned in reviews, once more works absolute magic. Every shadow, every light source, very mote of dust a work of art though occasionally it turns Blade Runner 2049 into a series of stunning paintings lacking a narrative drive.
But that fine really as the plotting is fairly spotty, and character motivations are slight and lack definition. None of it seems to make a lot of sense and Gosling's blank reaction to everything, though somewhat appropriate, can be infuriating, as you want to just shake him and ask why does nothing matter?
Going to get a bit more plot and character detailed now.
So. Here's a pretty picture first.
So the film is pretty fucking terrible when it comes to how it deals with it's female characters. It would be fair to say that they are shallow, lacking depth of motivation but that seems true of the male ones too. But there seems to be no reason to be so consistantly awful to each and everyone.
Gosling's replicant is given a hologram girlfriend. And the film spends a strange amount of time in playing an angle about AI maybe? How much does she think for herself? And then her only purpose is to be fridged.
Gosling is beaten up all the way through the film but none of the violence is as vicious as what happens to numerous woman. Robin Wright gets a horrific bit of business with a whiskey glass and a casually violent head/desk interaction that is played almost as a punchline.
Most of the women are there to be looked at and then dismissed. The camera peruses a lot of naked flesh for no real reason.
Unlike Enemy there is no context to this misogyny, the film wants to explore the issue of what it is to be human but never really considers that females might be human. And doesn't really get around to examining what it means to be human either. It's pretty sloppy.
Why is the story Gosling's and not Deckard's actual child? A woman who is literally locked away her whole life and ignored by the film -to deliver a twist? Why is Rachel so callously regarded by everyone (a stand in actor - with cg i guess face - an example of more of the disregard the film has).
Is Mackenzie Davis (from the terrific Black Mirror episode San Junipero) a prostitute to comment on the way replicants are com-modified as purely physical commercial beings or is it just so Gosling can have a strange prelude to a sex scene with two women at the same time? Spoiler but it's the latter. And says absolutely nothing.
The film is too long, too ponderous and pretentious to get away with being this dismissive.
Poor show.
ReplyDeleteI admit that I didn't come out of the film feeling it was particularly feminist or anti-feminist. Thinking about it now, though, I think it did have issues but perhaps you're being a bit harsh with some of the things you mention?
Gosling’s girlfriend – I suppose you could look at her as a possession. A sexual one even, though this didn’t really seem to be what Gosling was after. The fact that she was basically a hologram companion, they gave her loads of character depth and even independence (yes, Gosling had overall control, switching her off at points and such but it seems pedantic to read into that side of it too much).
I admit that I wasn’t too impressed by the sex scene. It felt un-needed, but I’m not sure if it was particularly unfeminist (perhaps it was?) No flesh was shown really (at that point). And it seemed to ultimately be to get Mackenzie Davis into the apartment to plant the tracker – this could have been done many other ways though obviously.
The police boss (so boss, and basically owner in some ways, of our male lead) was a woman. The violence towards Robin Wright isn’t any worse than what happens to male and females alike. It also is inflicted on her by another female. And Wright’s character was strong (mentally and physically) in the face of it.
I admit there was gratuitous nakedness in big blue haired Joi scene. It was a beautiful image, of her all big and looking down on him but it seemed crazy for her to be totally nude, especially when that seemed to be so carefully avoided previously.
In terms of Deckard’s child, I get ya too. She could have been the lead, found out for certain she was the daughter and the film could have been the search for her dad. But, the direction they went – having a replicant retiring replicant as a lead etc was a good idea. Though, perhaps she could have enlisted Gosling as her sidekick or something. That would have actually been really good wouldn’t it?? However, definitely looks like there will be a third one right? The daughter will be much more prevalent in that, I imagine?
Last of all, not quite sure what you mean by Rachel being callously regarded? She is this amazing first replicant mother who the goodies love and revere. Practically, she had to be killed off between films – the scene with her in was well done, but sustaining that digital trickery for a whole film would have been difficult.
Anyway, rambled on for a while here. Hope you don’t mind me analysing your analysis. It’s interesting is all 😊