Blade Runner 2049 - the profound reality of loneliness

Do you know what it is like to be truly alone?

To feel so abandoned and desolate, beyond any notion of reality. In the dead of night, when you turn over to face pristine emptiness. A dull and deafening void in your mind and heart as time, without pomp and fanfare, deftly passes you by. The blinding darkness surrounds you, not when your eyes are closed, but when they are open. Memories fade, joy absconds, and reality departs, leaving but a garish blaze in its wake.

When the stark realisation dawns, that nothing and no one, was, is, and ever will be, yours.

That's what loneliness feels like.

Heading to an appointment in Samarra

In many ways, any great film is always somewhat about that aspect of the human condition we quite artlessly tout as loneliness. Disparate from the plot, an auxiliary thematic presence, or ingrained into the film's crucial elements, is the idea of a character grappling with the depths of this universal truth: everyone is alone.

There are an infinitude of stories which are unsuspectingly designed to be about other things, and the point of it is to be this grand allegory to the human condition. Sometimes it works but I often feel spoken down to, in some sense. Blade Runner 2049 makes no attempt to obfuscate you in this regard. Replicants, or bioengineered humans, are a reality of this narrative universe and that there is an implicit struggle by the very idea of their existence, on what it means to be human, is the very premise.

But the real reason the Blade Runner brand of stories and film noir resonates with many philosophy/cyberpunk aficionados, is because of its authentic style and voice, and its honest yet interpretative take on both the existential question, and Philip K. Dick's original text, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". Ridley Scott's original Blade Runner had Deckard grappling with the distinct but very real likelihood that his humanity was just as much in question as any replicant's. 2049 astutely flips the question and with an equally nuanced approach, interrogates what it would be like to contend with the possibility that your life has meaning, when your function depended on the mutilation of any kind of self-worth.

Women when I start yapping about movies (never happened)

What am I saying? What does any of this mean? Should I watch Blade Runner 2049? All reasonable questions to have up until now. I don't know myself. But let me see if I can dig myself out of this hole that I've created by talking about what makes this film and the original Blade Runner something you should watch almost immediately.

The cyberpunk aesthetic is the stuff that weirdly subtextual dreams are made of. I feel a sense of longing and loss, knowing that I will unfortunately never experience that world and those technologies. With a raspingly grimy, neon-soaked, stark and desolate skyline that serves only to distend the horizon of despair of an unforgiving terrain, and a crush of people forced into denigrated labor under a paradigm of extreme control and capitalism by corporations, where one can only manufacture indifference and disgust, what's not to love.

But leave the existential philosophy, which I can't effectively capture due to my limited intellectual bandwidth, and the stylistic throngs of cyberpunk anguish, that I yearn for but in a dreading manner, aside. Blade Runner 2049 is only really a masterpiece because of the impeccable characterisations and writing, and an ensemble I would personally go to bat for.

Literally me

Ryan Gosling. He'll probably get his own post on this blog along with Satyajit Ray, Uttam Kumar, and Chris Nolan. That's because I'm literally him. With an unparalleled oeuvre, here he accomplishes something few actors would ever truly be capable of: establish a relation of empathy with the audience. Officer K, the protagonist of this film, grapples with contemplating his existence and origin, reckoning with the possibility that everything he knows about himself is a lie.

K has nothing. He is nothing. He was made to be nothing by people who wanted to use him to their ends. K is alone even when he is not. And when he finds someone who makes him feel less alone, he must suffer the consequences of straying beyond his programming. His purpose, like ours, is to be but a cog in the system. K is lonely, not by choice or circumstance, but by function. Ask me, that's the most human thing I've heard.

Why Ryan Gosling excels in 2049 can be put down very simply: he's one of the best actors around. I'd push an argument for why each one of his performances should be awarded. But in isolation here, to venture for the truth about yourself so that you can feel a connection, to feel a little less alone, while being a brooding character who inhibits emotion is such a powerful idea and so paradoxically beautiful, that his performance is naturally in focus. Broken characters quite often encompass the thesis and philosophy of Villeneuve's work.

Sometimes, to love someone

Harrison Ford, had a seminal role in the original 80s Blade Runner as Deckard, and refused for a long time to do a sequel, which to be honest I'm fine with because between Indy and Han Solo, I was spoilt for choice. Deckard was and is a brilliantly written character, not just by virtue of being the protagonist of the series but because his motivation is so fundamental that his actions, though debatable, are honest. In the words of Deckard which I believe merit a discussion in and of itself, "sometimes, to love someone, you got to be a stranger."

The cinematography of Roger Deakins. I've already attributed much of my fascination to the world of cyberpunk because of its stylistic niche. But let it not be mistaken, the brilliant visuals and photography in this movie are a major reason why I've developed that niche. Every frame in Blade Runner 2049 is calculated, precise and absolutely stunning. It seems like muted colours would be an obvious style choice. You would be wrong to think that. Perhaps it's the cinephile physicist in me, but I've started to appreciate the optical finesse that goes into lighting and visual effects.

The mastery of Roger Deakins

Technical merit aside, Villeneuve does an excellent job with his modest and exhaustive pacing and intricate plots, character arcs and narrative elements. His love and passion for the source material obviously shows throughout. If anything, he makes a case for bringing back the 3 hour marathons I know and love. With the somber and crisp tones of Hans Zimmer accompanying the directorial voice, as the soundtrack, Blade Runner 2049 checks all the boxes of an auteur showpiece.

And yet as I write this, one can ascribe to me a sense of destitution. Questioning what it all means, for me. The truth is, we all do what we can to feel a little less alone in this world. I write because that's all I know how. From these films, I imbibe ideas, and to these words, I ascribe meaning. The fragility and naiveté of human existence is just that: an attempt to feel less lonely.

So I suppose the real question is, when it's all over, will any of this matter, or as Roy Batty put it best in the beautiful, wrenching soliloquy from the 1982 classic Blade Runner, will "all those moments be lost in time, like tears in rain?"

Tears in snow