Best film about slavery and the nature of mortality... ever!

Rating: 10/10 (29 May 2006)

These were also the themes of Ridley Scott's "Gladiator", which is not a good film because of the casual way it exploits history to make its point. Whereas "Gladiator" is a film full of grand-standing and hollow gestures that disrespect the past, "Blade Runner" is a film that imagines, with great respect, a future that could be and uses it to stage a valid morality play about the nature of humanity, slavery and mortality. One could say that Ridley Scott is more respectful of the future that he is of the past. I only know the film from the director's cut and I find it a perfect film...
Here are a few things I like about this film that have rarely been duplicated in another sci-fi film and were never again put together with the same care:
* believable dialogue that is spare and to the point and gives away just enough information to keep things on the "noir" side and for the viewer to imagine the rest - dialogue that becomes poetry by Lautréamont in the mouth of Rutger Hauer;
* a plausible and evocative atmosphere composed of set design, lighting, photography and special effects that really gel together, combining attention to detail with sweep and scope;
* acting, casting and faces that help the telling of the story (Hauer is the definitive hero of the 21st millennium, a Christ figure and a much better and more complex man than anybody else in the film);
* music (by Vangelis) that provides both space-age lounge music, psychological density and the kind of eeriness that was formerly Nino Rota's unassailed trademark.
It is an action movie that opens a whole new can of philosophical worms towards the end when the humanity of the enslaved replicant is demonstrated and the hero's motives and his own humanity are questioned. The whole film is so noble that it could be about the start of a new breed of Christians revolting against the industrial-military complex and a world government gone berserk for profit.
It remains one of the only worthy commercial films of the 80's to come out of the USA.
A WORD ON THE DVD: The Director's Cut DVD has no extras and the print, while very watchable, suffers from horizontal shakiness that causes a real strain on the bitrate and indicates that it could stand a good restoration. Every fan is praying for a Special Edition that would combine the original cut, the director's cut, a few analytical commentaries and as many extras as one can come up with. Criterion Edition, anyone?