Offworld Truth

Rating: Null/10 (8 November 2002)

Spoilers herein.
In the mid-seventies, I exchanged a few letters with Phil Dick, who had then dropped his obsession with parallel, valid visions and had developed a similar obsession with created realities. This concern maps well to the wave of film theory that was sweeping the film world, post-Kubrick. Its a sweet justice that this film from his book was sort of a milestone of that philosophy.
It concerns a narrator whose recollection of the events may be colored. Some may have happened, some may have been manufactured memories. Within the remembered story are people who fold memories, from the fellow who manufactures replicants, to he who makes `toys,' to the fellow who literally folds. This first use of noir in scifi underscores the matter: noir denotes a coloring of the world, an implied narrator (usually but not necessarily paranoid).
What makes this a watershed is that the studio bosses washed all that out of the theatrical release, making the narrator a trusted one by literally narrating. The film was a flop. With the director's reinstatement of the ambiguous truth, it has become a success. And who says the viewing public is too stupid to appreciate multilevel truths? Even people who think it is a simple story sense something deeper.
Harrison Ford as a person is completely clueless about the forces that created, surround and buffet him, so he is a natural for this role, probably his best. Joanna Cassidy (Zhora) is a redhead. Great films seem to have more than their share.
This camera is highly architectural. The state of the art with effects did not allow much camera movement, so all the perspectives are borrowed from Welles. So it doesn't innovate there, but the emulation is quite masterful. Where it does innovate is in the vision of an alternative (not future) world, but of course you knew that. However, it is worth noting how rare this is.
The combination of knotted truths, architectural camera, effective reinstatement of alternative worlds, and the confused projection of self are completely in line with what Dick intended (if not quite what he wrote). And it is enough to place this in the top three of my best science fiction films, and on my list of must viewing for students of visual thinking.
Ted's Evaluation: 4 of 4 -- Every visually literate person should experience this.