Maybe Kafka also dreamed of electric flowers

Rating: Null/10 (8 October 2017)

The possibilities were great: here we have a film about memories which, like all memories, no one knows just how "real" or "constructed" they are. At the same time, the film is a sequel (more of an emotional remake in my opinion) of another film which had to do with constructed ambiguities and is by now itself a well established cinematic memory for so many serious film goers. That first film loosely adapted a story by a writer who was himself a master of ambiguous realities, that interplay, overlap, insinuate. It was fascinating just to think about that: a new film that's like a transparent sheet of paper that loosely follows the previous layers, just like the fantastic love- making between K., his virtual girlfriend, and the prostitute she hires to "make it real". That's one of the scenes i'll take with me.
I thought they had it for the first half of the film: this LA is the same of 2019, but it evolved, Wallace's headquarters follow Tyrell's. The music uses the same colours of Vangelis' pallet to create a different but somehow recognizable painting (until the end when we actually get to hear the original melody). All throughout the film there are hints at the old one: 2 pianos (one of which hides something important), graphic references, etc. Kind of a visual deja-vu, where you recognize things without necessarily knowing where from. That's ambiguous, that's fine.
But here's a challenge and a trap with working with a source material that is grounded on ambiguities: there is a very thin narrative depth of field which you must use in order to keep the ambiguities, while not alienating the viewer from the storytelling. Very little must be in focus, and the out-of-focus parts must be seductive on their own, tease you into the thing. Such a film can't be made by either a preacher (someone who wants to teach you something) nor a puzzle maker (someone who won't be satisfied until all pieces fit together). Unfortunately i think Villeneuve belongs to the second group. The man has real visual talent, but he always tries to do 2 things at the same time which are to my view contradictory. He builds images, some very strong (and with Deakins helping they really are something...) and let you be driven by them, the way Tarkovsky would (albeit much less inspired). When you are already into the thing, meditating, absorbing, he screws the mood, and tries to impose some story on you. So after he introduces you to the universe of the film, teases you, seduces you, in a couple of masterful ways, he cuts your mood and focus on the story facts, thus killing the third act. **SPOILERS** The ending of the film is the perfect example: Deckard meets his daughter and kind of redeems a life of longing and absence, Joe K. dies (?) outside and we suffer with it. Who wants to know? I dreamed my whole life in films about what was made of Deckard and Rachel. Why won't they let me do the same here? Why close everything so perfectly? Why make perfect sense, perfect puzzle? And why did they have to bring a 3D version of Rachel, and shoot her in the head 2 minutes later? We had it! The voice clips that we hear through out, the mere mention of her name, what else was needed? Why would they bring her? Just to show off their 3D rendering powers? Shameless, the anti-origami... The other lame moment is Olmo's cameo, where his origami (a horse or a sheep?) is there for the sake of itself, as a wink to the past, with not consequences to the future.
In the middle of it, they loose the chance to develop one of the most interesting characters i've seen sketched in cinema: the girl, physically and emotionally isolated from the world, whose job is to create memories. Kind of a goddess, whose masterpiece is a memory that is real... but of course who knows what memories are real and what aren't? How could they come up with such a character and not explore the possibilities? Was she deliberately creating the whole film? manipulating the whole cosmology with her gadget? And if so, why do they mess this up by having Wallace drop a hint at Deckard that he was somehow designed to fall in love with Rachel? That's just fireworks, distractions, show-off like much of what Leto does as an actor.
But this Horse is no Unicorn, Wood is not Paper. Both unicorn and paper are human constructs, dreams that derive from horses and wood. The bad, unforgivable thing about this film is not in how something doesn't make sense, but in how everything, in the end, makes perfect sense.
The title of the comment is a reference to Coleridge and his dream.