Soggy and dreary relic from the punk era

Rating: 6/10 (14 August 2010)

For an early 80s effort so steeped in (Hollywood's version of) punk rock culture, this has aged surprisingly well. I recently re-watched for the first time since Reagan was President (the version with Harrison Ford voice-overs), and was surprised at how quickly it demanded all my attention. Even the tinny electronic soundtrack music sounds better here than on any ten space-rock albums by eerie era contemporaries like Tangerine Dream/Kraftwerk/Kitaro/Goblin/Philip Glass --- Everything about the look and attitude of the female lead character screams Bettie Page to me, right down to the archly painted brows. In keeping with this underground subcultural feel, the film's dreary sogginess, and the aura of decay and "perfect storm" damages that seems to infect everything on screen, from the epic backgrounds to the lighting, hardware, framing, tinting, right down to the characters' clothing and even their very complexions.
There aren't many films anything like Blade Runner (and the few with any similarity are from the same era - Liquid Sky, Class of 84, Metropolis as re-envisioned and soundtracked by Giorgio Moroder, maybe Dead End Drive-In) This is a future that looks to be particularly soul-sucking, where life itself no longer has much tangible worth, now that replicants have forever muddied up how humans perceive themselves ---- ie a nice place to visit (on DVD), but I admit I'm grateful Hollywood didn't live there long ----