A masterpiece for our time, a reflection of our future

Rating: 10/10 (16 October 2017)

Bladerunner 2049, like the original, is a concept art movie whose DNA is pure introspection wrapped tightly in a silk of ambiance. Various other movies have attempted to introspect on what it means to be human... What humanity is... Bladerunner is among the best of those, but it doesn't stop with just that question. When you analyze the Bladerunner movies together you find yourself sensing metaphors and symbols and outright injections of racism, sexism, elitism, commercialism, and "isms" I haven't even thought of; exploitation, environmental negligence, invasion of privacy, neglect, police corruption, and abuse of power. It was a frightening glimpse at ourselves today, at our inner nature, at fears ranging from xenophobia to claustrophobia to phobias that haven't been invented yet. Those are the negative things, but you can also find human ingenuity, art, innocence, and the need for love and nostalgia, all but lost like tears in the rain. The pacing of the movie was ponderous because it needed you to digest all of this brain food and eye candy, and it used the music and sound effects and visual effects to keep your attention. The music helped to glue you to the thoughts the movie was injecting you with - and some of them were on the level of subliminal advertising.
It remained consistent with the original movie, in continuity with the atmospheric theme but allowing us a more diverse glimpse outside the urban waste-cage and the clutch of overpopulation. But there is no improvement to be found outside the city: it is a lonely place with or without the crowds. The barren desert landscapes, the angry ocean waters, the garbage heaps of San Diego littered with desperate children, and the decadent remains of a sepia-baked Las Vegas were no improvements, and yet the eyes drink it all. The assault of personal space and by unregulated advertisement and human debauchery that sticks to you in like filthy grime was set in stark contrast with a distinct isolation on the outside, no better and no worse, and all welded together with stunning sounds. Both Bladerunner movies are a war between perfection and imperfection: our struggle to create a perfect world for ourselves results in a world decidedly imperfect. This is a world- build set on the unstable ground of organic, cultural, technological and industrial blemishes, the kind we turn our eyes from and pretend they don't exist. Watch both movies and you find yourself buried in things that fail or do not work quite right... Shorting out, dying, rotting, falling into disrepair, scraped up, beaten up... It is the future through the lens of today, rather than through the rosy glasses of yesteryear.
There are scenes in the Bladerunner movies (and others) in which the characters really aren't doing anything but thinking or taking a journey. The plot doesn't move and the characters don't develop. When that's done on purpose (see Under the Skin for more-than-enough of that technique) and when the actors and Director of Photography and Sound Designer and Composer aren't on board with what the director is trying to do, it fails. Even if they ARE on board it could fail, so it's a risky art, especially with an enormous amount of studio money, in a system where the studio people can intercede to "protect" their investment. I felt that this cut could use a little trimming here and there, as we lingered on a person thinking for a few seconds too many, or waiting (without any suspense) for Deckard to finally say, "Rachel," and as I waited, in my mind that police loudspeaker was saying: "Move-on... Move-on... Movie-on..."
The question of Deckard's humanity, and the ambiguity that drives everyone to debate it, is the metaphor of ourselves. He is the "everyman." What makes us human? Aren't' we all machines, striving for perfection, losing to imperfection, tangled in a war against death for a life of despair we can't seem to win? The unicorn has been used in mythology to symbolize the incarnation of Christ, able to bring back the dead and offer immortality. It did not make an appearance in the second movie. Or did it?