Driving through a madness that is almost too close to reality is disgraced-cop
Lenny Nero, a cyber-spiv, a seller of "experiences" recorded and played back via
small portable MiniDisk players. The firmware is chic. The software is (as expected)
mostly porn and violence but the wetware isn't just your usual scum; all kinds are
wanting to experience Niro's hardware.
Nero sells experiences through the illicit (but more or less commonplace) use of a
headset -- police-developed hardware -- relaying the contents of the MiniDisk into
the head of the wearer; "it's almost as good as being there" Nero to out-oozes a
lawyer-client. The opening minutes of the film leave no time for breathing -- let
alone settling down. "You" are jacked into into the mind of a criminal moments
before an armed raid is about to take place). Predicatably enough, the raid goes
wrong and "we're" on the run -- but that's okay, this is a game right?
We see your buddies systematically shot up during a rooftop chase (the swinging camera angles all heighten the sense of disorientation) there's a failed leap scene: you're pulled up only enough to see your buddy shot in the chest (some blood and other shit hits you, his grip loosens, you fall. You die. End of game, right?
Wrong. It's not a game, that was a snapshot of someone's death. The disk (referred to as a 'blackjack' -- the VR equivalent of a snuff video) passes from the supplier to Nero who's job it is to sell it to a market hungry for new input. You might not be able to keep your stomach with the film's centerpiece: a fairly graphic prowl, rape and murder scene (I almost didn't)... I'll leave the details to the movie -- but suffice to say this is a very sick puppy we have here.
The soundtrack hits the movie's atmosphere right on the button: Much of it performed
in Retinal Fetish, Hollywood's idea of San Francisco's popular sex clubs: it's hip, cutting
and brutal. Sounding like Front 242 blended with Black AmeriKKKa, it builds a grim
soundtrack for a future where black kids are singing songs like "There are no white
clouds in my blue sky". There's a black power movement forming out of the imminent
downfall of white-operated drug businesses there's a growing hatred of police brutality, racism and bigoted media opportunism.
Had Strange Days been released immediately after the truth behind the Rodney King
trial was made known, this movie could have felt like an uplifting, empowering
indictment aimed fairly and squarely at the LAPD. But just days into the aftermath of
the OJ Simpson trial -- with even the quality newspapers scrabbling for OJ "media"
epilogues to fill the column inches, Strange Days represents a brutal, violent and
desparately bleak portrayal of the next milleneum. A future where we only have
ourselves to blame... or to cherish.
See it if you must.
Tanais Fox