Blade Runner (1982) Directed by Ridley Scott

Nick:
Blade Runner takes me back to a time when I was making my first record. We were recording in Brixton where Depeche Mode had made their first album. The producer of the record was this Irish guy who absolutely loved Blade Runner and insisted I see it. He played in one of these sub-U2 bands of the time who got quite popular. The record when it eventually came out did pretty OK and it was my start on a long road in music that I'm still traveling. I associate the film with quitting college, unemployment, playing gigs at the Marquee club, New Order (the band), Philip K. Dick and  William Burroughs, Thatcher, record deals and Italy winning the world cup and other things that were happening in my life as a 17 year old. So Blade Runner has had a personal significance to me ever since I  first saw it. It's easily amongst my favorite films.

There have been various versions of the film released (the original version had a Harrison Ford voice over in homage to Philip Marlowe), but this is the final cut of the movie and probably the most satisfying. It's interesting that the film is set in  2019, only 9 years away from now, yet we are still so far away from this world. We are not as advanced technically  as Blade Runner suggests, so obviously in 1982 the filmmakers thought it still possible that advances in space travel would happen,  yet damage to the environment (LA is permanently rainy and gray in Blade Runner) would send us back to the literal dark ages. Could still happen within 9 years.

Yes, this is a weird downer sci -fi, but the film is deeper than that suggests and still stands up because of it's emotional quality. It's could also be a Los Angeles noir and sits comfortably next to pictures like  L.A. Confidential, Chinatown and The Long Goodbye.  The hunted replicants (very advanced genetically engineered life-like robots) display a bigger desire for life than many of the cynical humans in this film. Fords' performance is perfect as Deckard the Blade runner of the title who's job it is to hunt down and retire the replicants. Deckard is as weary and vulnerable as anyone here. There is a suggestion in this new version of the film that Deckard is a replicant himself, related to a dream of a unicorn and a found origami unicorn. Interpret this as you will.  Sean Young, Edward James Olmos and the Vangelis score. All magic.

Scott smartly keeps this world grounded in familiarity, we recognize a lot of these surroundings. The sets and effects, pre-CGI still stand up and the movie looks better than ever. But the moving denouement, Rutger Hauer's replicant Roy on the rooftop in the rain with the white dove waiting to die. He teaches Deckard a lesson in humility and in the preciousness of life that we all take for granted. It's a mighty moment in film, and I'll carry it with me forever.

Antichrist (2009) Directed by Lars von Trier

Nick:
Yesterday was a bad day. Flu has been hitting hard and the re-emergence of a personal nemesis was an extra irritant.  Antichrist had been lying on the shelf for a few months and I was wanting to watch something to fit my mood. I was looking for Horror, but of course this being von Trier nothing could ever be so generic. By the end of Antichrist  I realized I'd been watching a very depressed von Trier's most personal film full of conflicting ideas and not really what i expected.

Each new von Trier film seems to be greeted with equal shouts of genius or derision depending on your point of view and more often than not the results often lie somewhere in the middle. Through all the self mythologizing and the ego is an OK film maker. With Antichrist von Trier tries to deal with grief and relationships and obsession. The premise of a couple trying to mourn the death of their young child and going somewhere to heal their wounds only to discover horror is dealt with far better in Nicolas Roeg's 70's masterpiece Don't Look Now. The two films are very similar in fact and this film must have been an influence on von Trier basic premise for Antichrist. Unfortunately Antichrist falls apart half way through. It can't decide if it's a psychological drama or a horror picture and it feels like von Trier looses interest.

Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe turn in beyond the call of duty performances. They go bare here in many ways. It seems what ever von Trier asks his actors to do they will do. There is trust. It's sad then that once von Trier has set up the picture to be a serious examination of post traumatic stress and depression that he cops out and unconvincingly turns to horror to make what point?  If anything you get a real sense of conservatism going on, as if von Trier is holding back from showing true horror. Yes, pointless genital mutilation is shown, some nonsense about witchcraft and you're wondering where did the picture go.  Little hints abound that the events on screen could all be a dream, it could all be happening in Dafoe's subconscious.

One always wonders if every von Trier movie is gently taking the piss. Of course the female character of Antichrist believes that women are evil. She is a mother who's child has been lost and Nature (mother?) is portrayed as a cold and scary environment. Is von Trier mocking accusations of misogyny leveled at him previously? Who knows, but it shows a previously unseen humor in von Trier.  Antichrist is interesting but flawed.