Education

1. The Treatment of Memory and Identity in Ridley Scott’s
Bladerunner, Wild Strawberries, and Paprika
Introduction
In this essay I will be analyzing how memory is portrayed in the films Blade
Runner, Wild Strawberries, and Paprika. All these films share a common theme that
the past that is a part of present life. I will look at both how memory is conveyed in
terms of technique in these films whether it be in flashback, images, metaphors,
dialogue or music but also the different themes that the exploration of memory in
these films brings up and how each of the films raise different concepts about the
role of memory in our being human.
Genre Theory
In this essay I will be looking at such concepts as artificial memory or
false memories and ask the question as to whether this matters and how
‘your personality also determines what you remember’(Weir, 2019, p
108); the relationship between memory and the imagination, and how
the past the present and the future are in some ways with us at all times
and merge into each other. As Henri Bergson says, “Every perception is
already memory. Practically we perceive only the past, the pure present
being the invisible progress of the past gnawing into the future.”
(Bergson, H; 1988, p150)” This idea of the philosopher Henri Bergson
applies to all the films I will look at. I will also though be looking at the at
the unconscious mind, repressed memory, ‘what forces lead us to
remember one event but not another.’ (Weir, 2019, p108), and how
unearthing or even re-inventing these memories effects who we are.
Blade Runner
One of the primary themes of Blade Runner is that without memories we have
no sense of self which would leave us lost and unstable. This is why Tyrell gives the
Replicants memories.
“If we gift them with a past, we create a cushion or a pillow a pillow for their emotions.”
(Turkel, J 1982 cited in Bladerunner,)
However, the memories given to the replicants are false which raises the
question
“If you can't tell the difference between a real memory and a fake one, does it matter?”
(Davidson. J, 2019, P1)

2. Does it matter in the sense that it makes you less human if your memories are not
yours? What impact does it have on the characters? For the most part it is portrayed
that it doesn’t make a difference. This is conveyed through Rachael’s character arch.
When she finds that her memories aren’t hers she is upset and throws her
photographs on the floor. Her memories are no longer comforting but are now
disconcerting and she is disowning them. Suddenly the images in the photo no
longer refer to a reality and this has an unsettling effect. In the words of Jean
Baudrillard
“It is dangerous to unmask images since they dissimulate the fact there is nothing behind
them.” (Baudrillard. J, 1983, P9,Simulations)
But afterwards Rachael is seen playing the piano which she knows how to play
but doesn’t know if they are her memories or Tyrell’s niece. We never find out and
the point here is it doesn’t matter. This possibly false memory can still be used and
affect her in the present. Most people have memories that cannot be proven to be
real but it is the lessons learned from a memory that makes a personality. Memories
are not the only measurement of humanity; emotions are also important. It is clear
that the replicants are capable of emotions like anger, love, empathy, and sympathy.
Infact Deckard and Roy go through a similar character development in that they start
off as merciless killers but by the end of the film Deckard is assigned to retire
Rachael but chooses not to and Roy saves Deckard’s life when he stops him from
falling to his death. Another key theme of Blade Runner is death. Roy’s speech at the
film’s climax highlights the potency of death and its relationship to memory.
“All those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain” (Hauer R, 1982, cited in
Blade Runner)
It is raining the majority of the time in Blade Runner including in this scene.
The imagery of the rain falling to the earth is a metaphor for the millions of human
lives destined to fall towards their deaths. Roy’s sadness that it is “time to die” is
captured in the phrase “tears in the rain”(Hauer, R, 1982 cited in Bladerunner) This
image not only captures the tragedy of the knowledge of our deaths but that our
individual tragedies are lost in the universal human suffering taking place at all
times. However, this fact also connects us to each other exemplified by the way Roy
and Decker connect at the end. The rain falling is not just a metaphor for the lives
that are lost but millions of memories that make up each life. This suggests that a
vast number of past realities and future possible realities of the individual are
destroyed in death. An individual is more than what they currently are in the

3. moment of death as they will have been a different person in all of their memories
and all of their experiences to come. When Roy dies we see only the image of a
physical body dying we don’t see what he has seen and felt in life “I watched C-
beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.”
The sentiment of the hugeness of what is lost in death reminds me of a passage in
the film Unforgiven
“It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away everything he's got and everything he's
ever gonna have.” (Eastwood, C; 1992, The Unforgiven)
In BladeRunner the earth is dark, the sun mainly blocked out and illuminated
only by windows of lights or the neon lights that comes from signs, or aircraft
moving through the sky. The constant darkness could be a metaphor for the
darkness of the mind and the lights are perhaps a metaphor for memories. This
could be interpreted that in the cruel and strange world of Blade Runner people look
towards their memories for guidance, explanation, and comfort. This is reinforced by
the nostalgic 1920s style music that features in Bladerunner (2007) such as One
More Kiss, Dear (Vangelis 1997). As Hoeckner points out the score of film leads us to
interpret images in a certain way ‘sound alters the image by making viewers
conscious of something they may not otherwise notice’(Hoeckner, (2019) P4) The
nostalgic music in Bladerunner is heightened by the sense that the reality of
experience has become unstable.
“When the real is no longer what it used to be nostalgia assumes its full meaning.”
(Baudrillard. J, 1983, P12, Simulations)
Wild Strawberries
One of the primary themes in Wild Strawberries is the way in which the
protagonist, Isak Borg uses the memories of his youth to protect himself from the
pain of the present.
“If I have been feeling worried or sad during the day, I have a habit of recalling scenes from
childhood to calm me. So it was this evening.” (Sjöström. V 1957 cited in Wild Strawberries)
Dr Borg lives alone with his maid, his wife is dead, and it is implied that his
family doesn't visit him very often. The first dream sequence is a nightmare which
takes place in an empty, abandoned, silent street. A figure of a man with his back to
him appears in the street but when he tries to get his attention the man’s features
are ‘distorted and wrong’ (Sexton, N; 2017, P1) and he crumples to the ground and
disappears. This scene conveys his fear of isolation and that there is no real human
intimacy in his life. It suggests that there is some underlying regret towards not
staying close to his family. This is demonstrated by the sharp contrast of this

4. nightmare to the flashbacks of the social interactions of his youth which are taken
from a time when there were a lot of people in his life. These memories give him
some reprieve from the loneliness he feels in the present. Isak also feels
disconnected to the present and interprets his dream as trying to tell him,‘That I’m
dead, although I am alive,’ (Sjöström. V 1957 cited in Wild Strawberries) emphasising how
people can become unable to identify with their present self and often do not know
the reason behind their actions. This makes the present often seem less real to Isak
than his memories. It is perhaps easier for Isac to understand the actions of a past
self because he has had time to reflect on the consequences of past actions and
hence memories are often more emotionally invested than the present.
“I don't know how it happened, but the day's clear reality dissolved into the even clearer
images of memory that appeared before my eyes with the strength of a true stream of events.”
(Sjöström. V 1957 cited in Wild Strawberries)
Dr Isak Borg is further portrayed as being not fully in the present and not fully in the
past by the imagery of a clock face with no hands which is seen in his nightmare at
the beginning of the film and on his father’s pocket watch. This doesn’t only mean
that, “time has run out for the doctor”(Blake, R; 1975; P171) but that time has
literally stopped being measured sequentially. There are many instances of the past
and present merging such as the parallels between the two Saras of the film – the
hitchhiker from the present and his cousin from the past whom he loved in his
youth. Two men compete for the love of present Sara just as he and his brother did
for the past Sara.
In another one of Isak’s dreams Sara shows him a mirror which reflects his
face
Wild Strawberries draws attention to the relationship between the
imagination and memory. It is apparent that Isak’s memories take place in dreams
and may not be accurate to the actual event or real at all. This is shown through
some of memory scenes which seem like a private conversation and he is not
directly spoken to. It is possible that he has reinterpreted past events to fit with the
emotions and regrets he has now.
The way he develops as a person is not just by retrieving the past but by
altering or inventing memories in dreams. When he remembers the conversations
between Sara and her sister about him this may not have actually taken place but is
a reflection on how Isak views himself and a realization of what he should have
changed about himself and has been blind to.

5. “Yes, but recently I've had the weirdest dreams, as if I must tell myself something I won't
listen to when I'm awake.” (Sjöström. V 1957 cited in Wild Strawberries)
David Robson suggests that memory is integral to not just who we were in the
past but who we are in the present but who we want to be.
“Memory didn’t evolve so we could remember but to allow us to imagine what might
be.” (Robson, D; 2019, P105, New Scientist)
This concept appears in Wild Strawberries when Sara the hitchhiker tells
Isak “Can’t you see you’re the one I love, today, tomorrow, and forever.” (Anderson.
B, 1957 cited in Wild strawberries) and he replies with, “I’ll keep that in mind”
(Sjöström. V 1957 cited in Wild Strawberries). Dr Isak chooses to remember this
moment and will use the memory to learn to focus on love with what is left of his
life. It is of course not just the present hitchhiker Sara that is talking to him here but
the past Sara. Both played by Bibi Anderson to emphasis the past and present
blurring. It is the Sara of the past that the film suggests he has not kept in mind to
his spiritual downfall. It is no coincidence that following this scene he recollects an
idyllic memory where he is reunited with his cousin Sara. She takes his hand and
leads him to a lake where his parents are fishing. ‘It is a scene as close to paradise as
anything Bergman has created’ (Blake, 1975, P165). It is accompanied by the music
used when a good spell is cast and with a close up of him smiling. There is a
transition to him as he wakes from his dream with same smile on his face which
suggests that the dream’s message that he is capable of love has leaked into reality.
There are also certain parts of Isak’s life that he doesn’t like to look back on.
This is conveyed through the scene when the middle-aged couple enter Isak’s car. At
first there is just the young hitchhikers in the car with Isak and his daughter in law
and the two groups enjoy each other company but once the middle age couple enter
all they do is argue and the atmosphere turns sour. What Bergman is perhaps trying
to convey here is that for Isak old age has a better relationship with youth than it
does middle age. He says of the middle age couple late in the film, “They remind me
of my own marriage.” The youth are seated at the back of the vehicle, the middle
aged are seated in the middle, and Isak is seated at the front so he is literally looking
back on his past. The difference in people’s ages in the car journey is used as a
metaphor for these different stages of life and memory co-existing not always
harmoniously at the same time. Isak kicks the middle-aged couple out of the car and
so chooses to reject the painful middle age part of his life. However, the middle age

6. couple return to question him in the court dream sequence, hence, it could be
argued that he learns also from this stage in his life
The theme of forgetting I as important as the theme of remembering in Wild
Strawberries. Marianne has to finish the poem he recites and his mother mixes up
her children’s names but remembers their toys which could possibly show that
memories often need the present to activate them as she hasn’t seen her children in
years so doesn’t remember them. It seems as though Isak’s memories have been lost
to him for a long time but have been reactivated due to his academic award which
makes him contemplate his lack of real human achievements in life. The theme of
forgetting is also present in the next film, Paprika.
Paprika
One of the primary themes of Paprika is how repressed memories and the
unconscious has an impact on who we are and how it is played out in dreams. This is
the case with Detective Kogawa’s recurring dream. Kogawa’s dream consists of him
chasing a murderer down a corridor, as he is chasing him the floor melts away and
the murder escapes through a doorway of white light. Kogawa doesn’t initially
realise that this part of the dream sequence is a reworking of a repressed memory
and something he feels guilty about. The corridor dream sequence is reminiscent of
a film that Kogawa and his friend made in the past. The dream has an unfinished or
unresolved feel to it and this is because it is reminiscent of an unfinished film due to
the death of his friend. The floor melting away not only conveys the instability of
dreams and memory and that we cannot always hold on to them, but also that
Kogawa feels as though he has failed to become a director and follow in his friend’s
footsteps. “He was always one step ahead of me.”(Ostuka, A, 2006 Paprika), Kogawa
says. The fact that he cannot get to the end of the corridor or the end of the dream
symbolises an unrealised desire from the past. “What about the rest of it?” (Weisz. E
2006 Paprika) his friend asks in the final reliving of the dream. The detective feels
immense guilt in his life but is unable to link his guilt to not finishing the
film. Kogawa only realizes this memory is the source of his nightmare when he is
chasing down the real life villain inside the dream and he sees a vision of his friend.
He shoots the villain for the first time whose face also becomes clear for the first
time in the dream – it is Osari. This demonstrates that through the reliving of
memory we can change them and their meanings sometimes become clearer to
us. The fact that it takes so long for the dream and memory to become clear and
reach a resolution is because as Christopher Mahon puts it:

7. “According to basic psychoanalysis, the conscious waking mind...goes to great lengths not
to understand the unconscious, because it contains thoughts that are too threatening, frightening,
or shameful to acknowledge. (Mahon, C; 2018; p1)
Mahon applies the above quote to the relationship between Dr Chiba and
Paprika but it applies equally to Kogawa.
Similar to Wild Strawberries it is hard to tell if the present causes memories of
the past or if it is memories that determine the present. This is shown through the
fact the Kogawa is a cop so his real life has been influenced by his memories sub-
consciously but his present guilt is what triggers his film-making memories. Kogawa’s
friend highlights this two-way relationship between the past and the present but
also fiction and reality when he says, “You just lived out our movie in real life. That’s
why you became a cop.” (Ostuka, A, 2006 Paprika)
Paprika also has similarities with Bladerunner in that it poses the possibility
that in this case or dreams rather than memories can be invaded and supplanted by
the dreams of others, ‘Like a virus spreading across people’s minds.’ (Mahon, C;
2018, P1). Paprika and Blade Runner also share a similar visual mataphor. As
mentioned above I feel the mystery of mind and memory in Bladerunner is
visualised in the earth’s darkness as contrasted with neon lights and window lights.
The mindscape metaphor presented in Paprika on the other hand is visualised as a
vast desert, ‘a common symbol of the mind in surrealist painting,’ (Alexenterprises
2018) which has been invaded by the bright colors and noise of the dream parade
representing dreams, symbols, and old artefacts from the past. However, it is
ambiguous in Paprika as to whether dreams should be perceived as a good thing
because the members of the parade whilst exciting also seem foolish, random,
brainwashed, and nonsensical and do not at all have a personality but exist as a hive
mind that doesn’t interact with or even acknowledge reality. The contrast of the
parade and desert is ‘used as a tool to capture this feeling of insanity invading the
human mind.’ (Alexenterprises 2018). In a 2007 interview Satoshi Kon says
“If you go into that world it is very vivid colorful and seductive, but there are big traps
within that world, particularly if you let the real world deteriorate as a result.” (Kehr, D;
2007 Anime Dreams, Transformed Into Nightmares).
Conclusion
In conclusion all three films demonstrate how in different ways memory is at
the very core of being human. They also demonstrate how perception and memory
and the past and the present, dream and reality, cannot be separated neatly. They

8. demonstrate how memory can be both a source of comfort and trauma and how it
can give us a sense of reality and identity but also unsettle our sense of reality and
identity. Also what all three films demonstrate is that film more any other artistic
medium with its combination of sound and image can capture visual memory
perhaps better than any other art form.
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