Denis Villeneuve used the film techniques of dialogue combined with setting to show the aggressive relationships between man and replicant. We see this when K is verbally abused while coming home from his job when a Hungarian lady yells at him; “What’s up, you beautiful tinplate soldier? So you choose to come home now, you prick. Who’s waiting for you in there? I’ll kick your leg out, you bastard”. The dark grimy stairwell, crowded with people, shows that none of the actual people cleans it since they believe it should be left to the ‘slaves’. This dialogue is used in a way that gets more and more aggressive as K ignores it. This was done to help to explain the relationship between replicants and humans. It shows that replicants aren’t well thought of and that they are seen as useless no matter what they do. It invokes a feeling of sympathy from the viewer because it makes the viewer realize that the lady is blaming K for the dark living space. This also helps us to better understand the background character’s feelings. This is important because it helps us to empathize with K because he is the main character and is intended to have a similarity to the viewer. This is comparable to peaceful protest, no matter what happens to the replicants they don’t retaliate. They take the verbal abuse and deal with it.
