Suspect?...How can it not know what it is?

Rating: 8/10 (23 May 2012)

I had to see this film couple of times before I could figure out the art, the symbolism and the philosophical ideas driving it. The dialogs seem innocuous on the surface, but as you go deeper and go over them from various angles, they turn out to be profound, especially those that take place in Tyrell's office. This is art and intellect at its best. The central theme or idea of the film is based on a very fundamental question: How does one distinguish a 'real' human being from an 'apparent' human being? Precisely what defines 'human' apart from mere bodily appearance and intelligence? In the movie a lie-detector like machine is used to detect the emotional responses of a test subject to determine if that subject has enough empathy to qualify as a human being, failing which he/she is identified as a 'replicant', which in the movie lingo means genetically manufactured pseudo-humans, designed to work 'slave like' in extreme physical conditions that also require intelligence. Naturally, in the context of the plot, all 'self attested humans' consider the replicants as mere machines, and those that do not perform according to their set role, or display rebel like behavior are to be hunted down and 'terminated with extreme prejudice' by the special policemen called 'bladerunners', who are also trained to use the 'empathy test' to detect replicants. It is the untested assumption, amounting to prejudice, that the replicants can never have higher emotions like empathy, love, compassion, value for life other than one's own, etc. The central idea of the movie is that this untested assumption, this 'extreme prejudice' is now going to be tested for all that is its worth, and lots of 'lives', both 'human' and 'replicant' are at stake.and both the human characters as well as the replicant characters will display behavior that is not to be expected, is extremely ironic if the existing assumptions and prejudices are to hold. The other striking aspect I found was a great sense of ironic humor in the dialogs. One example is Tyrell proudly claiming 'More human than human is our motto'. That one made me laugh for a long, long time. Then there is the romance between Deckard and Rachel which also blends well with the central theme, an integral part of the plot and which also gives a sense of completion to the movie in the end. Rather than classify this as science fiction I would classify this film as 'humanities reality', that is, a film that should be considered as one that addresses the most serious human concerns about the slow 'disappearance of the human' (Rick Roderick) in the postmodern world, a world in which 'real' is no longer meaningful and only the commercially manufactured images that sell the most are the only values left. This a one of those few movies that can be watched several times from different perspectives in order to fully appreciate the artistic and intellectual quality of the movie.