You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about movies lately, specifically the ones by Villeneuve. Someone mentioned ‘hope’ in his films, and it got me scratching my head. Hope? In stuff like Blade Runner 2049 or Dune? It didn’t immediately click.
This whole thing started a while back. I was kind of in a rut, felt like I was just treading water, you know? And I ended up rewatching Arrival and then Blade Runner 2049 over a weekend. The mood in those films, it’s heavy, yeah, but there’s something else there. It’s not optimism, not really. It’s more like… perseverance? Staring into the abyss but not flinching? Anyway, it resonated with how I was feeling.
Trying to Get a Handle on It
So, I decided I wanted to understand this feeling better, this supposed ‘hope’. Not by reading essays, but by trying to capture it myself. Seemed like a practical way to figure it out.
- First, I watched scenes again. Not the whole movies, just bits. The quiet parts in Arrival, the vast, lonely shots in Blade Runner 2049. Paid attention to the colors, the sound – or lack of it.
- Then, I tried writing. Just short bits, trying to describe a scene or a feeling with that same kind of atmosphere. Big scale, small human figures. A sense of wonder mixed with dread.
- Tried taking some photos too, with my old phone camera. Looked for big, empty spaces, weird light. Mostly ended up with pictures of grey skies and concrete. Didn’t quite work.
It was harder than I thought. Making something feel vast and meaningful AND personal at the same time? That’s tough. My writing felt flat, my photos looked… well, like bad photos.
What I Reckon Now
So, after all that fiddling around, what did I figure out about ‘hope Villeneuve’? Well, it’s not the Hollywood kind, that’s for sure. It’s not about happy endings. It feels more like the hope you find when you’ve accepted things are difficult, maybe even bleak, but you keep going anyway. It’s about the human spirit enduring, even when the universe seems indifferent or hostile.
My little experiments didn’t produce anything great. The writing is still just fragments on my computer, the photos got deleted. But the process itself, trying to engage with that feeling, it was useful. It made me think about what hope means when things aren’t easy. It’s quieter, tougher, maybe more real.
So yeah, ‘hope’ and Villeneuve. It’s complicated. But spending time trying to unpack it myself, hands-on, felt more worthwhile than just debating it.
