I was worried, though. I'm doing a cyberpunk series. And this movie is set in 1999, on the eve of the new millennium. That's four measly years since the movie's actual release date. How much dystopian future could Bigelow wring in four years?
Turns out, she'd be turning in one of the best cyberpunk movies of 1995, one of the best of the three I watched, anyway, and possibly one of the best movies of my entire cyberpunk selection.
I. A Great Premise
One of the great qualifiers of the cyberpunk genre is how "the street finds a way." This means that the seedier element of the world will always find new and dubious means to utilize technology. In Strange Days, a kind of technology exists that allows people to record their memories. It also allows other people to insert those recordings into a player in order to experience those memories themselves. By connecting right into the brain, that person can see and hear and feel and taste those memories. Of course this technology was developed by the military. But the street finds a way. That way is recording sexual encounters and allowing people to buy them and experience them. Of course, there are also Black Jacks: memory recordings of killings and murders.
Ralph Fiennes character, Lenny, is a former cop and current salesman of these memory recordings. He's been reduced to little more than a con man, with a briefcase of smut and fake Rolex watches. Lenny falls asleep in his dingy apartment to the memories of him and Faith (Juliette Lewis). The memory recordings are a wonderful device to explore real human issues.
They are a way to show how easy it is to get mired in the past. With this new technology, you can literally relive your favorite memories, over and over and over. Or someone else's. While all things in moderation can be good, an argument can be made against this technology based on the ease with which one can get addicted to living in other lives than the present.
One thing that Lenny does, that helps redeem the character and inform his inner workings, is when he delivers a special recording to a friend of his who has lost his legs below the knees. The man inserts the recording, and... sees a pair of pumping legs, running on the beach. He turns the recording off, and tries to thank Lenny. Only Lenny is gone. Lenny has left him to experience this joy alone. Lenny knows that he makes money on the strange sexual desires of his clientele, but he also provides other services, like a fleeting memory of running to a man who cannot do so.
Lenny believes he provides a humanitarian service. He tells Mace (Angela Bassett) this in the back of her limo. Whether this is a convenient lie he tells himself, or a truth he actually believes is largely left in the hands of Fiennes' performance. I like to believe that Lenny mostly believes it, but knows, somewhere deep inside, that technology is bad news.
And there's the murders. Where the killer links a recording device on his victim to his own device. This forces the victim to "live" in the killer's memory live stream. As he rapes and kills them. The last thing you will see and feel, as you leave this world, is the sadistic rush of pleasure of your killer murdering you. It is a legitimately chilling and awful way to die.
Strange Days does what cyberpunk does best: explores the depths of humanity's darkness using technological advancement as an impetus. The film shows the upsides of a specific kind of technology, the kind of morally dubious uses for it, and the downright sinister ways it can be twisted.
Ralph Fiennes character, Lenny, is a former cop and current salesman of these memory recordings. He's been reduced to little more than a con man, with a briefcase of smut and fake Rolex watches. Lenny falls asleep in his dingy apartment to the memories of him and Faith (Juliette Lewis). The memory recordings are a wonderful device to explore real human issues.
They are a way to show how easy it is to get mired in the past. With this new technology, you can literally relive your favorite memories, over and over and over. Or someone else's. While all things in moderation can be good, an argument can be made against this technology based on the ease with which one can get addicted to living in other lives than the present.
One thing that Lenny does, that helps redeem the character and inform his inner workings, is when he delivers a special recording to a friend of his who has lost his legs below the knees. The man inserts the recording, and... sees a pair of pumping legs, running on the beach. He turns the recording off, and tries to thank Lenny. Only Lenny is gone. Lenny has left him to experience this joy alone. Lenny knows that he makes money on the strange sexual desires of his clientele, but he also provides other services, like a fleeting memory of running to a man who cannot do so.
Lenny believes he provides a humanitarian service. He tells Mace (Angela Bassett) this in the back of her limo. Whether this is a convenient lie he tells himself, or a truth he actually believes is largely left in the hands of Fiennes' performance. I like to believe that Lenny mostly believes it, but knows, somewhere deep inside, that technology is bad news.
And there's the murders. Where the killer links a recording device on his victim to his own device. This forces the victim to "live" in the killer's memory live stream. As he rapes and kills them. The last thing you will see and feel, as you leave this world, is the sadistic rush of pleasure of your killer murdering you. It is a legitimately chilling and awful way to die.
Strange Days does what cyberpunk does best: explores the depths of humanity's darkness using technological advancement as an impetus. The film shows the upsides of a specific kind of technology, the kind of morally dubious uses for it, and the downright sinister ways it can be twisted.
II. Angela Bassett, B.A.M.F.
It's nice to see Angela Bassett, again. I forgot how good she is. Really good. Mace is a tough-as-nails survivor who sees her friend, Lenny, make increasingly poor decisions. Bassett plays all of her encounters with Lenny with genuine care, even when she's throwing him out of her limo, cursing him out.
But Mace isn't just a woman who can handle herself in an argument. She's also a certifiable bad ass, who can is equally adept at handing out ass beatings as she is at delivering withering chastisements.
Her arc, and past with Lenny, is gently teased out throughout the movie, and, in the hands of two incredible actors, is touching and sincere.
Fiennes has made a career of playing some of the nastiest people on the planet. It is interesting to seem him play a "good" guy where he is able to flex the kind of slimey acting muscles that would later make him famous. Lenny is a con man. He slithers in and out of trouble using his wits, but often gets the crap beat out of him as a consequence (like all good noir characters do). But he never stops. He's always playing an angle. He's always feeling for the exploitable spot.
Fiennes is one of the best of his generation, and proves it as Lenny.
Shoutout, also, to Lenny's wardrobe: the man wears leathern pants, gaudily printed shirts, and high-heeled boots. It is a fashion choice that should mire the man in absurdity. But Fiennes makes it work.
But Mace isn't just a woman who can handle herself in an argument. She's also a certifiable bad ass, who can is equally adept at handing out ass beatings as she is at delivering withering chastisements.
Her arc, and past with Lenny, is gently teased out throughout the movie, and, in the hands of two incredible actors, is touching and sincere.
III. Ralph Fiennes, Professional Piece of Shit
Lenny is an interesting character. As noted above, he sells smut, but he also provides genuinely touching opportunities for his friends. He is an ex cop, and retains some of that drive for justice. Even if he has fallen from grace.Fiennes has made a career of playing some of the nastiest people on the planet. It is interesting to seem him play a "good" guy where he is able to flex the kind of slimey acting muscles that would later make him famous. Lenny is a con man. He slithers in and out of trouble using his wits, but often gets the crap beat out of him as a consequence (like all good noir characters do). But he never stops. He's always playing an angle. He's always feeling for the exploitable spot.
Fiennes is one of the best of his generation, and proves it as Lenny.
Shoutout, also, to Lenny's wardrobe: the man wears leathern pants, gaudily printed shirts, and high-heeled boots. It is a fashion choice that should mire the man in absurdity. But Fiennes makes it work.
IV. World Building
Strange Days' Los Angeles isn't quite a cyberpunk dystopia, yet. If RoboCop was a transitionary piece into full-on cyberpunk, Strange Days exists on the same continuum, but a bit earlier in the process than Verhoeven's tale.
The LA of Strange Days is a city on the brink of war. It is apparent in every frame, even if the characters are all preoccupied with the main thrust of the plot machinations and their own lives. On the radios and TVs in the background, we see an LA on the verge of all-out war between the LAPD and the citizenry. There are tanks on the streets, and militaristic check points, and random burning cars. It's a really nice touch to have the characters in this movie largely ignore the chaos happening around them: 1) they have more important things on their minds than race war and 2) how fucking LA is that? "Fuck your riot, I have shit to do today."
While this LA is not entirely a cyberpunk nightmare, it is on the verge of becoming one. And on the eve of the new millennium, the world seems poised to either explode into more darkness, or try to salvage itself.
There is a final note of hope, in that regard. And I kind of enjoyed the suggestion of a better tomorrow. Even if it isn't very cyberpunk.
The LA of Strange Days is a city on the brink of war. It is apparent in every frame, even if the characters are all preoccupied with the main thrust of the plot machinations and their own lives. On the radios and TVs in the background, we see an LA on the verge of all-out war between the LAPD and the citizenry. There are tanks on the streets, and militaristic check points, and random burning cars. It's a really nice touch to have the characters in this movie largely ignore the chaos happening around them: 1) they have more important things on their minds than race war and 2) how fucking LA is that? "Fuck your riot, I have shit to do today."
While this LA is not entirely a cyberpunk nightmare, it is on the verge of becoming one. And on the eve of the new millennium, the world seems poised to either explode into more darkness, or try to salvage itself.
There is a final note of hope, in that regard. And I kind of enjoyed the suggestion of a better tomorrow. Even if it isn't very cyberpunk.
V. POV
I've seen a few movies do first person perspective shots before, but none of them have done it as good as Strange Days. DP Matthew F. Leonetti manages to make the extended sequences in first person feel hectic and alive without making me feel sick, which is what often happens.
VI. Timely
If you don't think a movie that revolves around what is essentially high tech body cam footage of an LAPD officer murdering an unarmed black man after a "routine traffic stop" is eerily prescient, you haven't been paying attention. This movie is boldly indicting abuse of power, and couching it in all-too-familiar contexts.
Did you think police violence was new? It is the central conflict in a movie from 1995. That's 23 years ago. And it has only gotten worse.
There were times watching this movie where my breath was taken away.
Did you think police violence was new? It is the central conflict in a movie from 1995. That's 23 years ago. And it has only gotten worse.
There were times watching this movie where my breath was taken away.
VII. Should You Watch It?
Otherwise, this is one of the best films I've seen in some time.
Miscellany
- Bigelow commissioned a special camera to shoot the POV portions of the film. A 35 mm camera weighing just eight pounds was created over the course of a year.- Juliette Lewis sang all of those songs. She has a side career in various rock bands.
- James Cameron did a lot of editing on this film, but was not a member of the Editor's Guild, and was therefore unable to receive an editing credit.
- This film shot mostly at night: 77 of its 80 day shooting schedule were night shoots.
- The SQUID decks are repurposed Sony MiniDisc players.
- The party at the end of the movie was a real party that cost the productions somewhere around $750,000. Aphex Twins, and other electronica bands, played. Reportedly, five people were hospitalized due to overdosing on Ecstasy.
- The film was a commercial flop, garnering a box office take of nearly $8 million dollars on a budget of $42 million. Bigelow wouldn't direct another feature for five years.
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