It's worth a try

This review contains spoilers. #film #about

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I was upset when Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind's final chapter unraveled — as Joel went through the motions of the movie's opening scene, and met with Clementine in Montauk and rekindled their relationship. The movie presents this as a sweet love story, a romantic reunion produced by Joel's sheer subconscious love of his ex-girlfriend; but I hated that he was rushing back to a person who had chosen to erase all memory of him without even the dignity of breaking up with him first. This is a cruel and abusive act (even if the victim likes your impulsiveness), like the worst possible version of ghosting a long-term partner without warning.

The movie redeemed itself when it showed Joel and Clementine confronting their former qualms about each other. There is wisdom in their choice (at Joel's urging) to try again anyway. It is not unlike what many already do when starting a relationship, even without the benefit of knowing how it will turn out. As Clementine says, getting bored with people is what she does. She doesn't need a recording of herself to guess where any relationship she has might head. And as experienced people (should) know, the honeymoon phase doesn't last forever.

All relationships eventually face challenges, uncertainty, the risk of stagnation. When Joel is undeterred by what the future seems to hold, he represents every person who has ever thrown themselves at a relationship for the sheer love of the experience itself, despite knowing it might not last.

Most things don't. But they're still worth having.

More human than human

This post contains spoilers.

Genre: Science-fiction film #film

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In Blade Runner 2049, K is a replicant — an android virtually indistinguishable from humans — who discovers his implanted memories are real, which suggests he may have been born rather than manufactured (an inversion of the original film in which Rick Deckard's own true nature is left ambiguous).

But after a long, emotional search for his literal humanity, K learns he is only a replicant after all. The Chosen One trope is thus turned on its head and for K, it's a crushing letdown — one that can also be difficult for the audience because BR2049 takes such great care to humanize the character.

Indeed, when K begins to believes he might actually be human, it's easy for us to go along despite evidence to the contrary. K can read a million words a minute, perceive microscopic details, and withstand (as well as inflict) tremendous amounts of physical punishment. How could one see him as anything but a machine? Yet K is utterly, convincingly human.

Outside of those physical abilities, there's truly little to differentiate him from anyone else. He eats, sleeps, and works for a wage. He lives among people. He bleeds. He cherishes his memories and shares them in private. He longs for companionship and nurtures the only relationship he has, however artificial. During his journey of self-discovery, his gradual loss of emotional control — culminating into something like a full-blown breakdown — only serves to humanize him further.

From the beginning, K's rich human experience seems to support his possibly unique origins. Even before he has any reason to believe he could have been born, K displays a plethora of human traits in BR2049's wonderfully crafted opening scene: He falls asleep in transit, a small yet relatable thing; he shows respect for Sapper Morton's property, even though Morton is a replicant he has been tasked to retire; and he displays genuine curiosity about Morton's cooking before imploring him to cooperate, hoping to avoid the “hard part of the day” that clearly make him queasy.

Joi also hints that K has long engaged in self-contemplation prior to that encounter. And who hasn’t? The movie's initial revelation — that a replicant has given birth — is likely little more than the catalyst for K’s long-brewing existential crisis, one driven by his very human need to be special. Having so dearly desired to be human, he leaps at the chance to confirm that reality. And when it crashes down upon him like a hurricane, his distress and ensuing depressive state once again only make him seem more human.

It's all too easy for the audience to deceive itself, along with K, into believing he is. Indeed, faced with someone whose experiences are so incredibly human, how could one perceive K as anything less? And in the end, does it really matter that he's not? The revelation that he isn't human only crystallizes that he never needed to be. Like Roy Batty before him, he's already “more human than human.”

Hi, my name is Kurt. This is Reviews & Muses. It's a title in progress.

I've started many blogs over the years, and all fell into disuse. Yet without fail, the desire to write always returns, even with no expectation that anyone will read what I have to say.

I wrote that over two years ago. Yup, this blog also fell to disuse. I'm still trying to break the curse. It's going to happen, damn it.

With this blog, I first focused primarily on writing about fictional works, ranging from movies to video games. Here's what I said at the time: “Fiction is a wonderful tool for artistically exploring real-life themes and ideas. And because writing forces me to form complete thoughts about the subject, writing about fiction helps me better understand the medium itself as well as the ideas it explores.”

Turns out that doing this is pretty tough and I wasn't up to the task of doing it on a regular basis.

I'll still try to do that from time to time, but I'm probably going to be taken a more personal-journal-style approach to the blog from here on out. And let's honest. Fiction is cool, but sometimes it's more useful to go straight at the themes themselves.

Tags

I'll try to keep some tags for recurring topic types.

• #books
• #film
• #games
• #music
• #television

Socials

I’m really not fond of social media and its adverse effects, even though it’s nearly impossible to promote one’s work without it today. I don't use the main platforms nor do I plan to.

I normally go by Clovis online. In 2023, I launched my first music album, Space Bunny under the name Klovys!

Contact

If you’d like to get in touch with me for any reason, you are welcome to shoot me an email at klovys.official@gmail.com. Any comments about the blog or music would make my day. Aside that, you are welcome to subscribe to receive email notifications when I make a new post.