Strange Days
USA | 1995 | 35mm | 145 min.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis
In a dystopian Los Angeles at the turn of the millennium, Lenny Nero (Fiennes, playing against type) is an ex-cop turned scuzzy black-market dealer of recordings for a device that allows a user to experience the memories, feelings, and physical sensations of other people. This noir-ish tale of voyeurism, police corruption, and virtual reality has been recognized as a prescient and shockingly hard-edged vision of civilization’s decline amidst technological advancement. A film ahead of its time, Strange Days is the lone collaboration between Oscar-winning filmmakers (and ex-spouses) Bigelow and James Cameron, who produced and co-wrote the screenplay. “Bigelow’s fin-de-millennium film straddles the divide between the 20th century, the century of cinema, and the digital future…[It] hasn’t aged a minute, sadly”(Nick Pinkerton, Rhizome.org). (LSL)
