As philosophically significant as "2001: A Space Odyssey" ...

Rating: 10/10 (19 November 2012)

Ridley Scott recreates a cyberpunk dystopia with the same meticulous craftsmanship than Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and the alienating technology of the urban landscape is so dazzling that each single frame has a magical hypnotic effect, making "Blade Runner" one of the few critically untouchable films on the simple basis of their artistry.
Indeed, for a genre that relies on pure extrapolation in space and time, "Blade Runner" is an iconic reference for both directors and art-designers, yet there's much more insightful themes to be covered. Through cloning, robots and extra-terrestrial expansion, Sci-Fi vehicles humanity's most existential quest: immortality, humans' control on their own creations or how much of God can they ever be. On that level, "Blade Runner" is as philosophically significant as "2001: A Space Odyssey".
And like Kubrick's masterpiece, it's no surprise that "Blade Runner" was also criticized for the slow pacing and relative absence of a plot. Speaking of my own experience, I didn't watch the theatrical version; I read that the voice-over narration was removed, so I can only judge on the basis of the Director's cut. However, remember my first feeling: as much as I loved the design, the artistic achievement, I was bored by the story and the lack of emotional connection between the characters. But I respected the film and its iconic status; I knew I couldn't dissociate the plot from the visuals since the action-less parts were clearly meant to be more introspective. After a third viewer, rather than an action-packed thriller, I see "Blade Runner" as a meaningful examination of our own condition through the antagonism between humans and Replicants.
The film opens with a written introduction, less stylish than "Star Wars" but much more promising. It sets the action is Los Angeles, in 2019, where a powerful Corporation named from its head, Dr Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel), created a highly advanced form of engineered robots, equal in force and intelligence as any human being, known as Replicants, whose purpose was to contribute to the off-world colonization. But four of them rebelled and slaughtered all their vessel's occupants and came back to the Earth, where their presence is forbidden. The mission of the Blade Runner is to (as they say in their jargon), 'retire' them. The genius of the story is to use a plot of epic scope and instead of crossover between "Westworld" and "War of the Worlds" offers a darker and more minimalist tone, since only four Replicants are targets, still enough to root them in cinematic legend, each one unforgettable, each one perfectly casted.
The Replicants are Pris (Daryl Hannah), Zhora (Joanna Cassidy), Leon (Brion James) and the leader and closest to perfection in his Aryan-like appearance is the emblematic Roy Batty (Ruthger Hauer). Leon is the first to appear during the infamous Voight-Kampff test: a series of questions meant to detect Replicants' flaws in the eyes. Although the eye-symbolism is omnipresent as eye is considered as the window of the soul, Ridley Scott doesn't regard the Replicants as soulless creatures. Tyrell's beautiful assistant, Rachael, played by a beautiful Sean Young as a dark femme-fatale, is the only self-ignoring Replicant since she was given an artificial memory materialized through a series of photographs in order to comfort her in that illusion. Rachael embodies the illusive Schumpeterian aspect of life, as a series of representations, something that only exists through our knowledge and stop when we are not. Is life only a dream, and we wake up when we die?
The film follows the investigation of Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, and the long quiet moments are invitations to meditate on these Replicants' conditions, and how different they are, from us. Ford is a good choice because he's precisely the kind of actors who doesn't need much to say or to do, to keep our eyes focused. Through Deckard, it's a whole universe we discover, the triumph of Asia over the world, the over-urban culture, but the soul of the film, belongs to one of the most cinematic villains: Roy Batty. Through his desire to be programed for a longer life, he represents our fight for immortality, our nihilistic escape from a certain death. Tyrell, like God, created men on his own image, but after being told that he couldn't live longer, Batty rejected the God that gave him life and pierced his eyes in one of the most brutal killings from any film. Batty stands for our rejection of God's gift for the gift of life has no value if it's meant to finish.
Eyes are the windows of Batty's soul, many of these lines start with "If you could see what I saw", as a desperate need for immortality through the posterity of his own experience. This leads to the poignant climactic monologue before he dies, where he spares Deckard' life so his own death would be witnessed, then remembered. Deckard survives from the will of the villain, and in a way, it's the villain who triumphs, because he'll be remembered, and because he embodies some existential torments we can all respond to, and that carry many film noir undertones like the fatality of an existence guided by forces no one can escape from, which also applies to Rachael, and naturally, to Deckard, himself.
Now, is he or is he not? That is the question. What if my life started at the moment I wrote this review, with a sort of programmed memory, how could I be sure that I really lived my life. It's Zhora's snake biting his own tail  maybe the salvation relies on the present, an escape from the past and toward the future, a course between two never-existing points, that Deckard takes at the end, to join Rachael, his life or an unreachable meaning, leaving us through the iconic score of Vangelis, in our own interrogations and the feeling that there are still hidden meanings to be discovered in future viewings.