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Blade Runner (1982)

It's been a while since I've updated this blog! In celebration of the release of Blade Runner 2049, I'm going to provide my own (very) personal review of the original Blade Runner (1982) film:

It sucked, and I hate it!＊

＊This is obviously my personal opinion, and I am not hailing it as an objective truth. I also need to point out that I am heavily biased toward the book (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick). I am also completely aware that the film is a loose adaptation of the book, but I will address this further on.

I very rarely ‘hate’ films – it is an intense word, after all. After years of being force-fed overanalyses in high school, however, I feel that the film warrants this. The thing is that in high school, English teachers will tell you that it’s ‘okay to have your own opinion of the film!’ before going on to inspect every little detail that points toward it being a literary masterpiece. Then they go on to say that your opinion must be founded – without offering any advice for analysing it from a negative perspective. Here I am to say that it is indeed entirely possible to both effectively analyse the techniques used as well as show that a film (in this case, Blade Runner) is completely and utterly terrible!

I summed it up quite nicely after very recently (within the past hour) watching Blade Runner with my family in the hopes of inspiring hype for the sequel: Blade Runner is a good film, but a terrible story.

The film:

Good symbolism – the use of animal associations for the Replicants in order to accentuate their inhumanness; the unicorn, as well as the origami; color; motifs associated with implanted memories (phrases, sounds of children’s laughter); fire (a la Prometheus);

The noir feeling – I personally am not a fan of the genre, but the pacing, soundtrack, general atmosphere of the film and the theatricality of the interactions, so to speak, represent the genre well;

You know the rest – intertextual references (Paradise Lost, if I’m recalling correctly; the parable of the prodigal son); world building referencing the context of the film, that being increasing globalisation and the mixing of cultures; Tyrell being short-sighted despite his ‘visionary’ status and the shortness of the Replicant lifespan... I could go on, but that would involve searching for my high school English notebook, which I’m fairly certain I threw away as soon as I was done with it. You’ve heard it all before.

The story:

Bad – thanks for highlighting their inhumanity when the point was that they’re pretty much humans anyway; all it took for Deckard to wonder if killing Replicants was a good idea was a totally unnecessary romantic subplot; I know the ending with Batty was supposed to be symbolic or whatever, but narratively speaking, it makes very little sense that after all he did, he would choose to save Deckard;

The noir feeling – you may have noticed this was in the film section. I personally hated what the pacing did to the film and how it changed the focus;

It’s flimsy, it holds no water, it’s bad.

Again, I need to stress that this is my own opinion, and I am very specifically comparing the film to the book despite the fact that the film is only very loosely based on the book. I do find it significant to address adaptations in general, however, and the consequences of one ‘badly done’.

Loose adaptations, loose narratives

For this segment, I’m going to make reference to the film Edge of Tomorrow (2014). The source material of that film is less well-known (in the West, at least) than that of Blade Runner (being adapted from All You Need is Kill, by Sakurazaka Hiroshi), but nonetheless, there are very significant parallels to be made that can be attributed to the common factor of their being ‘loose adaptations’.

Here’s the thing: I’m not at all saying that adaptations must be 100% accurate or not be made at all. Especially when the source material is cross-cultural, one can’t expect values to translate directly, or indeed the original context of the source material may be vastly different from the adaptation temporally speaking. The message may not even be the same, perhaps being intentionally subverted in order to make a point.

What I’m saying is this:

When one co-opts the narrative of a piece of media, there is a certain point at which one has to be very careful when changing around significant plot points and events.

There is an internal logic that runs within a narrative. Changing an event disrupts that logic. In order to make the event fit, the narrative will have to be moved around, the backstory rearranged, certain elements introduced or removed. If you go around changing things willy-nilly without a care for what it does to the consistency of the story, you end up with: one (1) horrible, no good story.

At this point, I would present a good adaptation for the sake of comparison. Unfortunately, many of the ones I can think of that are good (Fight Club, perhaps arguably; The Silence of the Lambs; The Shining) are ones where I’ve only seen the films for, so on the point of them being adaptations, I am not well informed.

So again, I ask you to think of really bad adaptations. I think we can all agree on the Hollywood renditions of Dragonball, The Last Airbender and Death Note being absolutely horrendous adaptations. We can’t change around ideas without considering the effects or how the narrative must be changed to accommodate this, but thinking about all these other horrid adaptations also suggests that there is something essential to the source material that one cannot abandon. In Dragonball, this may be Goku’s unique personality, or the fact that he’s Japanese. In Death Note, this may be the fact that Light was meant to be a perfect student who was too smart and developed a god-complex. There are things that make the characters who they are and there are things that a story is about, and ultimately tampering with them is something that backfires more often than not.

Let’s go back to Edge of Tomorrow and Blade Runner.

I didn’t like Edge of Tomorrow. Even before reading the source material, I did not like it. There’s first the fact that the consistency is dubious regarding the whole omega/alpha thing; what’s up with him going back in time and the omega suddenly blowing up? The film also introduces a lot of values that weren’t present in the book. This is understandable, seeing as the source material is Japanese and this is a Hollywood adaptation, but that does not mean it was done well; there’s a big emphasis on teamwork and team sacrifice (where in the book, there are two significant characters pretty much), and there’s this weird theme of Cage (white-washing aside for now) going through the loops and slowly becoming this brooding sacrificial hero figure that ultimately becomes better than Rita, who a) had already gone through this before, and b) is a more accomplished fighter than Cage at any given point. This is pretty sexist, as despite her seniority in pretty much every aspect, Rita quickly becomes the film’s damsel in distress, but what makes it the most disappointing is how it compares to the book:

Rita, front cover to back cover, retains her seniority over Keiji at all times. On one hand, this may be because of Japan’s larger focus on social hierarchy and community; this still leaves a bitter taste in one’s mouth when the West is supposedly becoming more ‘progressive’ and leaving the damsel stereotype behind. It also transforms the story; in the very end, Rita is the one who figures out what is going on, and it’s through her actions and decisions that the loops finally end. In fact, she dies only because she decided she was going to die – “I finally understood. When I met Rita yesterday, she had decided that she was going to die.” (p.187) Yes, Keiji becomes a hero and is acknowledged as such, but up until the very end, he recognises Rita as her own person, someone he could never replace and perhaps could never amount to. “Red was your color, yours and yours alone. It should rest with you. I will paint my Jacket sky blue, the color you told me you loved when we first met.” (p. 196) All that emotion, that weight? Gone.

The change of her role also creates an awkwardness in the alien hierarchy system. Originally, the Mimics had a server which triggered loops through the antennae, and Rita had been an antenna. The solution is thus pretty simple in the novel. This changes with the introduction of the alpha/omega system, and the transfer of the target from the ‘alpha’ to the ‘omega’, creating that strange maybe-contradictory ending.

But I digress.

The point of that tangent was that while one can understand that yes, of course things are allowed to change, but that doesn’t mean that it makes the narrative better or more cohesive. Betraying the point of the original material is one thing, but doing it badly is something else entirely.

To very briefly sum up the main themes of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?:

ableism, classism, the importance of status in society and how this ties in with the dystopian setting – see Isidore and his being a ‘chickenhead’; how this and classism separates those staying on a war-trodden earth and those who escape off-world; how they separate humans and ‘non-humans’; artificial animals and real animals serving as a status symbol;

emotions, intelligence, and how they make up the human identity – there’s the idea of the androids feeling emotions, which is portrayed in a much more nuanced fashion in the books, as well as the parallel with the Penfield mood organs; the explicit fact that humans and androids have varying levels of both intelligence and emotional capacity, further suggesting the lack of true difference between Replicant and human;

the concept of a machine being either a hazard or a benefit – though Deckard mentions this in the film, it hardly makes the same impact as meeting Luba, who for all intents and purposes enriched musical culture and did not pose a hazard; there’s also the idea of humans having the ability to be just as deplorable as androids supposedly are, as in Resch;

Mercerism – this one is understandably not incorporated in the film (seeing as this is a film, and not a two- or three-part series), but it does add an interesting dimension vis a vis the concept of artificiality and technology as a means of shared consciousness, as well as the willingness of humans to believe in something that is irrevocably proven false.

What it boils down to, essentially, is ‘what makes a human human, good or bad’, as well as the implications on society as being a community of humans. Typical sci-fi philosophical fare, but it very much leaves you thinking that the answer is, ‘well, humans are pretty terrible but also incredibly variable and really is there any difference between humans and androids? No, I guess’.

The first thing that should pop out is that there is a clear mismatch between central themes in the two media. You can argue that the vague idea is the same, but how they go about it is extremely different. Perhaps to an extent this is a given, as there’s only so much philosophising that a film can allow without stretching into the two hours and above section, but the film undeniably displays it in  a much more shallow way. Batty’s dramatics are just that: dramatics, theatrics, all for show. Maybe not strictly accurate, but another word that comes to mind is pretentious. Again, it’s for the cinematics, perhaps part of the genre, but personally I find it difficult to engage with something that is clearly a caricature. Perhaps this is the point, but certainly this was never the point that the novel had meant to make.

What the film tells you about the androids is ultimately very different as well. As mentioned beforehand, all the Replicants have an associated animal – Pris with a raccoon, Batty with a wolf, and so on – which further heightens their inhumanity. What strikes me is that in the novels, there’s no such clear distinction between human and inhuman – the androids are not made into animals and neither are the humans. However, what does happen in the novels is that traits that are considered human or inhuman are shown to be prevalent in both androids and humans. Androids have lower emotional capacity and cannot pass the Voight-Kampff test – but then again, there are many humans that can’t, either, for a lot of different reasons. Androids are portrayed as ruthless, violent, cold-hearted – but then again, there are humans that are, as well. So what makes humans so different? Well, they can think for themselves and have their own ambitions – but so do the androids. But the one thing they can’t fake is emotions, right? Well...

What may differentiate the film and the novel in their portrayals of humanity and inhumanity is their ascription of good and bad to them, respectively. The humans in Blade Runner are assumed to be good because of their humanity – conversely, the androids are assumed to be bad, because of their inhumanity. There are many themes running through the novel, but this black-and-white morality is not one of them.

If we take away this assumed good-or-bad dichotomy, we find that Blade Runner is ultimately a shallow film with no backstory or deeper meaning. Why did the Replicants flee? How did they know each other? With no reason for this, the film is forced to come up with an additional plot point: the four year lifespan. The focus stops being ‘what is human’ and starts becoming a tale about playing god.

The film manages to not only simplify any sort of complexity in the absolute worst way possible, but it also manages to go against the central themes holding the novel together.

And you know what? Blade Runner isn’t unique for this. Plenty of blockbuster films are guilty of the shallowest, most predictable and bland storylines imaginable. But what really takes the cake is this:

The Final Nail in the Coffin

Despite Blade Runner being despairingly simple objectively, despite it being straightforward and not requiring any real critical thinking or philosophising, despite it being an alright film at best and an insomnia-killer at worst, despite all of this, they made us study it for HSC English, and they had the audacity to make it sound deep and complex and made us analyse it as deeply as one would the mysteries of the universe.

I never want to hear about how the fires are reminiscent of Prometheus bringing fire to humanity or how the sight of the sun is reminiscent of Egyptian Pharaohs and a symbol of power or about the intertextual value of Batty’s pretentious spiels ever again. It took me watching the film again, years later, to realise that I absolutely abhor the film, and would do well never to watch it again.

Phew.

Again, as a film? Technical beauty. Easy to pick out techniques and stylistic decisions – probably why it was chosen as a focus in the first place. But hey – so is Gattaca, and that’s actually a good film.

[watchandtalk]

The Invitation (pt. I)

※Because it’s highly unlikely that I’ll be able to limit myself to just one post on this film.

The Invitation (2015) unapologetically became my favorite film after the first viewing, and there have been many more since then (and will probably have countless more in the future).

The Good

Some diversity (about 40% of the main cast consist of POC - a black woman, an East/Southeast Asian couple, a latino man - and features a gay couple) - and not all the POC/gay people die!

Carries out the 'anticipation' aspect well, and doesn't rely on a 'big reveal' to keep tension. If anything, the ending/'twist' is already given at the start - it's up to the audience to decide if it's really going to happen, or if it's the paranoia of the main character. In my opinion, the psychological thriller aspect is more poignant knowing what the ending could be; the various scenes of affection, familiarity and support fuel the horror when the climax is finally realized.

Pacing greatly contributes to the above. It's not exceedingly slow, but manages to create an effective build-up.

Subtly reveals backstory in a way that fits with the overall tone of the film. It also doesn't come off as ham-fisted, as it does in e.g. The Perfect Host (2010).

Actually builds an emotional connection with characters. This is significant seeing as the film deals largely with grief, but also since succeeding at this can make or break a thriller - e.g. Don't Breathe (2016) or The Perfect Host (2010) (I may or may not greatly dislike this film).

There's a ton of things I can bring up about the film, but I'll start with why it was personally effective for me. When it comes to experiencing and understanding films, it is sort of hard to extricate my own mental illness from that experience. I don't, for example, typically pick up on social cues, and I won't be able to pick out subtler emotions. There are also emotions that I simply cannot understand, which makes me a real buzzkill when it comes to rom-coms and most comedies. It's not surprising that I'll naturally drift towards films dealing with suffering and also have a jolly good time about it.

Are the characters actually acting strange, or is it just the style of the film? This is one of the most common questions running through my mind for any given film, but for this film, the protagonist asks this very question, acting as an effective go-between for the audience.

The fact that he asks this at all, for me, shows how close he is with his friends to be comfortable asking. It conveys that fact better than if the film had, say, not said anything about it and just expected the audience to pick up on it.

The films essentially tells you everything you need to know, but isn't obvious about it. The questions flow naturally while still revealing important details of the plot, and the conversations are realistic. When the hosts show a video of a woman dying on-screen, the visitors are appropriately discomfited by the fact they'd show something like this at a dinner party.

When I first watched the film, the most surprising aspect was the fact that these characters openly said 'I love you' to each other, but that's an analysis for another day. The fact that the film can do this while remaining as effective as it is proves, to me, the quality of the exposition, the cinematography, and the film itself. The soundtrack, too, is simple, but does its job, not interfering with the mood but instead lending itself to it.

There's a lot more to be said about this film. It deserved more than its 3.5 rating on Netflix, in my opinion. For now, I can only encourage you to watch this film for yourself. I went in without even knowing a lick about the plot, and I've been trying to recreate that experience (to no avail). Give it a try!

[watchandtalk]

High Heel (2014)

I didn't know what to expect going into High Heel (2014). The synopsis on Netflix is given as a cop getting caught up in murder amidst attempting to transition as a trans woman, but I thought to myself, I probably shouldn't get my hopes up.

Thus I was pleasantly surprised going through and having the protagonist being treated seriously and being handled well. Great soundtrack that will stay with me for a good while, I loved the fight scenes - I only have a few questions that probably have obvious answers, but I can't read or speak Korean and I suspect anything that would have answered me would have been written in it.

This is therefore not spoiler-free, and there is also talk of suicide, which should also be watched out for if you decide to watch the film.

Was Jin-woo gay? It's basically given that he was in love with Ji-wook, but I don't understand his breakdown. He may have been mourning the loss of what he'd held up as the highest standard of masculinity, but in terms of the themes of the film, for that idea to have been his main beef with Ji-wook would just make his role redundant. The Huh brother (whose name eludes me) fulfils that role quite well, and would round out the idea of Ji-wook being held up as the epitome of masculinity - first as a romantic interest for women, then as a romantic interest for men, and after, the ideal for men to actually be. That said, I may have misinterpreted, and in fact Huh Gon and Jin-woo's opinions of Ji-wook in this respect may be inverted.

Did he actually sleep with Jang-mi, or was it just a kiss? I'm holding out on the hope that it was not the former, but still. For the sake of Jang-mi and her late brother, I hope Ji-wook had better judgement.

Was an explicit reason given for the suicide of Jang-mi's brother? It can be assumed that it was due to the stress of trying to live in a homophobic and transphobic society, but I'm not sure if I missed a cue because it seemed that Ji-wook was a lot more concerned about it whereas the brother was willing to beat up other kids over it.

It was definitely great to watch, I'll give it that. I did take issue with the English title being 'Man on High Heels' (after the summary clearly declares her a trans woman), but beyond that the matter is treated fairly. Ji-wook's internal conflicts (and external conflicts) is moving and is portrayed sympathetically, and while the idea of 'fixing' is an issue (I understand that this is the mindset in East/Southeast Asia at large, but still), the different ways of living as a transgender woman (HRT, no HRT, top and bottom surgery, no surgery, partial surgery, etc.) being shown as valid was surprising to me in a good way.

(Mostly valid. I can't parse the tone of the interaction Ji-wook had with former Mr. Rodeo, but there seemed to be disbelief and incredulity that someone whose 'top wasn't fixed' would 'actually be a woman'. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought this was terrible form.)

That said, I haven't gotten the chance to hear the opinion of a trans woman (particularly in the context of East Asia), so I'll hold back on that. The ending was definitely bittersweet, but at the very least I can say that I am very glad he didn't actually marry the sister. She deserves more than being a replacement for her brother (which she was for the kiss, at least), and now I'm left wondering who she's marrying in the end.

[watchandtalk]

Briefly on The Jacket (2005), it was advertised as a mystery and maybe thriller/action, and the given summary implied a lot more pertinence to the murder mystery and the identity of the true criminal (and a lot less supernatural elements). I was severely disappointed. Was it a bad film? Not necessarily, but I could have saved myself a lot of time if I had been told what I was actually in for.

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The ultimate goal of this blog: will help hapless HSC students looking for a good ORT. I've been there

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Notes on Shutter Island (2010)

※Notes, because this is less a review than it is one massive conspiracy theory, which I only realized once I finished writing it. That said, this post definitely has spoilers. Verdict? It was a good film and I wouldn't mind watching it again.

Admittedly, I had to google just what the heck that ending was supposed to be, but found myself distinctly unsatisfied with the possibilities laid out before me (on the first results page, so granted this may have been suggested before).

Andrew Laeddis was not wrong.

To even accept that Edward Daniels was Laeddis was a bitter pill to swallow. Being mentally ill myself, I was more than ready to take every word at face value, as well as take Laeddis' side over everyone elses. It's near impossible, however, to not consider the two one and the same by the end of the film.

To think that everything up till the end was merely a delusion would, in my opinion, undermine what the film has been trying to tell us all along.

Once you're declared insane, then anything you do is considered part of that insanity.

Laeddis was wrong about the circumstances of his wife and children's deaths, but I don't believe he was wrong about the nature of the institution.

Admittedly, I don't exactly have an abundance of evidence proving this. Maybe it's my unwillingness to discard everything Laeddis said. It definitely doesn't help that I have no recollection of the finer details of the plot despite having watched it only a couple days prior. I don't, for example, remember how long it was after the murder that Laeddis was incarcerated, if it was revealed at all. That sort of information would affect the likelihood of the info he obtained actually being real.

A point of interest regarding this would be the conversation Laeddis has with Noyce. Noyce seems to know about the institution's plan, but he doesn't necessarily seem to be on their side, either. The extent of his knowledge, however, is unknown. The institution must have filled him in on Laeddis' story. He says a few things, however, that are interesting, and I think it's worthy to note that Noyce never lied to him.

This isn't about the truth. It's about you! I was incidental. A way in. (..) I'll never get out now. I got out once. Not twice, never twice.

I don't think he was coached to say this, either. He was definitely coached to say the bit about the lighthouse, and the reason I say this is the difference in his behavior. When he's yelling at Laeddis, he's up in his face, head-on, not taking his eyes off him. In contrast, his line about 'Laeddis' being in another ward is said with Noyce far away from him, not looking at him. This is followed by him looking at Laeddis again, saying, "God help you." He knows what they're up to, and I believe in this instance, as well as his spiel against Laeddis' lies, is genuine.

If we take this to be the honest truth, then this line might tell us two things. A) It's possible that Laeddis was telling the truth about getting information from Noyce. This may be referring to something else, but I think the next point is a lot harder to refute. Namely, B) Noyce had escaped before. This seems to support Laeddis' story about how he learned of Shutter Island. Still, it's also possible that Laeddis had just learned about Noyce's story nine months prior, and that information was incorporated in his delusions.

The entire charade would also be the perfect way to mask any proof of unethical behavior. he's delusional, so his accusations are baseless. If any evidence of torture was found, they could chalk it up to making 'fake evidence' for him to find in their attempt to make him 'see the light'.

Of course, this is all speculation. Given the timeline, it's possible that his delusions did not initially include the torture conspiracy, and so it naturally progressed when he was admitted (and possibly feeling persecuted as a result). On the other hand, this isn't explicitly stated. (I haven't read the novel, as a disclaimer.) If the institution featured in his delusions before being admitted, I'd say it seems less likely to be baseless.

[watchandtalk]

Krampus (2015)

Krampus (2015) was one of the most disappointing films I’ve watched as of late. I probably should have guessed it wouldn’t be a personal favorite given that it is a Christmas film and those usually aren’t my jam, but I held out on the hope that I’d finally get to watch a good horror film.

That said, I was (and still am) on the lookout for scary horror films, and wasn't really looking for something family-friendly. It's not like it was irredeemably terrible, but I'm definitely not watching it again any time soon.

The summary (which would have saved me about an hour and a half of my life, had I actually read it) is that the Krampus is the dark-and-edgy anti-Santa that punishes those who lose Christmas spirit. The single sympathy-worthy moment in the film for me was when one of the visiting cousins snatched protagonist Max's letter to Santa and read out his innocent and selfless requests.

The Bad

an all White™ cast

not believing in Christmas is punishable by death but it's radio silence on Yom Kippur? Thanks secular Christianity!

the ultimate 'moral' of the story is also incomprehensible

What exactly is the message? What we get is a young boy who only wants the best for his family becoming disillusioned with a holiday that fails to bring families together. He then exclaims that he hates Christmas and just wants everyone to go away. Even at the climax wherein he 'takes back' his wish, he is still punished, trapped in a snowglobe.

So what exactly is being punished here? The fact that a boy is appropriately distraught that the adults in his life fail to remain civil or set a good example for the kids? That he was rightfully upset and said things he might not have meant?

No matter how you spin it, there's no good explanation. He's being held up to some sort of ridiculous standard that even the adults around him can't uphold, and he is, in the end, a child. You can argue that buy the end, with the others being punished, they grew closer as a family and have the Christmas they wished for, but they are presumably stuck in that globe, on December 25, for the rest of eternity. That may be a severe misinterpretation on my part (was it actually just a sort of looking-glass, and they weren't trapped?), but the point still stands. The film seems to frame the boy in the wrong, rather than punishing the rest of the family for not 'keeping the spirit of Christmas alive'. 

Other than that, I couldn't take the monsters (particularly the gingerbread men) seriously, but it's a family film so it's not exactly a flaw. The characters were for me unmemorable beyond the protagonist, I recall nothing about the soundtrack and the cinematography wasn't particularly outstanding. An alright film, but I can't say that I liked it.