2009 was a great year for Kathryn Bigelow. After a 7-year hiatus from filming K-19: The Widowmaker, she returned to direct The Hurt Locker, a suspense and war film set in Iraq that has deservedly been recognized by critics and award bodies alike, and is expected to be one of the primary contenders for the Academy Awards. Bigelow is known for her superb work in the action genre, which is rarity among female directors. Her skill in filming tension and violence is as good as any of today's directors.
But what sets her apart from most of her contemporaries is her attention to her characters, which is clearly what draws her to direct. While her peers' films dictate what their protagonists are supposed to be (e.g. Michael Bay = macho, James Cameron = implacable, Michael Mann = professional), her films probe into what drives her heroes and heroines in their white-knuckle moments, without feeling judgmental about them. Manohla Dargis probably describes it best, when she dubs The Hurt Locker as, "diagnostic, not prescriptive."
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The review
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With this in mind, I decided to take a look back at one of the more memorable science fiction / action films I saw in the 90s; one of Bigelow's more overlooked films, Strange Days.
The movie was released in 1995 surrounded by pessimistic American cultural low points such as the O.J. Simpson murder trial and the Rodney King beating, the film shares a grungy, threatening, and somewhat dystopian outlook of Los Angeles at the turn of the 21st century. Here, 1999's L.A. is an anarchic police state, largely resulting from the murder of Jeriko One (Glenn Plummer), a prominent rapper critical of police brutality.
The film's lead, Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) is a street hustler and ex-cop who peddles illegal "Superconducting Quantum Interference device" (SQUID) recordings; essentially virtual reality mini-discs of other people's memories, which can be fully experienced by those who "view" them. Despite his seedy charm, he lives a lonely life, longing for his ex-girlfriend and singer Faith (Juliette Lewis), constantly replaying SQUIDs of their past relationship.
In his dealings, he receives a "blackjack" or snuff disc portraying the rape and murder of Iris (Brigette Bako), a prostitute and former close friend of Faith whom he knew and met within hours of her death. With the help of his friends Mace (Angela Bassett), a bodyguard who loves him, and Max (Tom Sizemore), another ex-cop and now private investigator, they look to find out why Iris was murdered, and hopefully save Faith from a similar fate.
James Cameron, who helped produce the film and write its screenplay, assigned this picture's direction to Bigelow (his ex-wife). He must have known that the similarities in their methods, as well as her filmmaking gifts, would keep his vision intact. There aren't the massive scale action sequences that one is accustomed to in Cameron picture. The action here is less technical and more personal (another trait in Bigelow's work). But despite these smaller-sized scenes, she maintains a disciplined mood and pace of anticipation and energy, in a style that can be easily mistaken as her husband's. The film's opening 3 minute shot alone is a fantastic achievement, looking like what Scorcese would have done with a De Palma long take.
Another similarity here is the presence of very strong female characters, in either emotion or physicality. In the past 30 years where women in action films have been mostly tripping over themselves just to hold a gun properly let alone fire it, or be the partner nagging the male to be there for his family, these liabilities are failings you cannot accuse Kathryn Bigelow (nor James Cameron) of. Here, Angela Bassett is a powerful maternal figure as well as a stone cold fox. She plays the sexiest butt-kicking single-mother since Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor. For the life of me, I cannot believe that she has been the most underused acting resource in Hollywood ever since.
Speaking of Mace, Bigelow does something interesting with her character. She switches it with that of the male lead, turning Mace into the powerful action hero rescuing Lenny in the most dire of situations. There is one shot showing Mace cocking a glock in her holster between her two thighs, concealing it under her party dress. It is probably the single most masculine scene I have ever seen a heroine do (outdoing Linda Hamilton's pull-ups in Terminator 2). This surprising role reversal is perhaps a big factor why the movie tanked at the box office.
These are some scenes that many don't expect a woman to follow through on, among others. The film shows first-person perspectives of sex and assault that in the hands of a man would be criticized as sexist and misogynistic, but with Bigelow, they're never solely gratuitous. She utilizes them for us to empathize with the seductiveness of such contraband, the excitement of its possibilities, and the danger and ruthlessness of the film's villain. Roger Ebert is spot on when he says the film's Point-of-view (POV) shots "force" us to inhabit the film's realities, which is really what a good movie is supposed to do. And its this willingness by Kathryn Bigelow to plunge headlong into this cyberpunk world that underlines her fearlessness, despite the sexual politics involved.
It's not only Bigelow's stylings that are interesting, but also her character development. As mentioned, her protagonists don't easily fit into categories. Lenny and Mace at no point in the entire film, become cliches. Lenny's snakelike salesmanship masks an emptiness that few film heroes are willing to show. When Bigelow shows how Lenny looks when he is viewing his SQUIDS, he looks pained and uninhibited, but he is meant to look so as to add pathetic and disturbing dimensions to his character, and show how deplorable his trade is. Mace on the other hand, isn't simply a musclebound amazon. Bigelow somehow manages to showcase her with genuine femininity, and an almost maternal concern for Lenny. When she yells "Right here! Right now!" you know exactly what she's talking about. Together, Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett are the film's soul.
Being a rocker herself, Juliette Lewis also lends the film authenticity with her usual raw and edgy performance as Faith. I don't think there are any Hollywood actresses today, other than Charlize Theron, who are capable and willing to lay themselves bare on a consistent basis the way Juliette Lewis did in her prime.
It's a shame that the film has some obvious weaknesses. Its dialogue feels too polished for its setting. Its costume design a bit too grungy, and its third act, though expertly shot, is a mess plot-wise, with intended parallels to Rodney King feeling forced and unnecessary. James Cameron is a skilled storyteller, but not a great writer. Of course, with some of these arguments, hindsight is 20/20. And to give some credit, the idea of a rapper's killing with immense distrust of the police, became prophetic with the death of Tupac Shakur.
But despite its flaws, what makes Strange Days worth seeing is its devotion to its characters, its remarkable use of POVs to create its consistent atmosphere of apprehension and excitement, and most of all, its fearlessness. We see Kathryn Bigelow trying out new tricks, reversing sexual roles, confounding expectations, and going all out. It wasn't perfect, but it was never boring, and a pleasure to see.
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Ebert's 1995 review of "Strange Days."
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Excellent review of one of the best SF films in recent memory. It's a shame that Strange Days isn't given more accolades and Bigelow hasn't received much recognition for her expert directing. I would love to see more female directors take on such films especially in the speculative genre.
The only complaint I have for the movie (even though it's a favorite of mine) is the fact that the big conspiracy with the police unit wasn't fully explored. There was a lot of potential for real life parallels dealing with corporate consumption of government and noirish tint of a totalitarian military force clashing with free human will on the cusp of a new millennium. There are little moments that do pop out in parallels here and there but it would have been nice to see an overall acknowledgment of it within the main story. Instead, the major conflict was relegated to two crazy cops and a nutty, jealous "ally". A minor complaint in an overall enjoyable movie with great characters.
Thanks for your review; I'll have to check this out--both for the reasons you praise in your discussion, and because a few months ago, as a physics grad student, I had to do a lot of reading on SQUIDs. They're niether illegal nor dangerous (right now, they're mainly used as very sensitive devices for measuring magnetic fields), but it's always interesting to see how filmmakers use modern jargon to lend some degree of verisimilitude.
Nice work man. I haven't seen the movie, and now have to see it.
Because “Strange Days" is one of good movies I have heard many times but never watched, I don't have much to talk about it. However, this movie reminds me of Douglas Trumbull's "Brainstorm"(1983). It also features special device which can vividly record others' senses and feelings, and certain record of death(this time, it's natural demise: heart attack) plays important part in the story concerning confliction between scientist hero and the government. Unfortunately, the movie did not fully expand its potentials from this intriguing set-up. The story and characters are too shallow, and the movie did not explore dark, dangerous side enough. Too bad because Trumbull, special effect master of "2001" and "Close Encounter of the Third Kind", made very memorable CG effect sequences for this movie.
By the way, this movie is Natalie Wood's last movie, and the production was quite troublesome because she died during filming. I don't know well whether her death affected the story, but like Terry Gilliam in "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus", Trumbull managed to complete the movie despite such a tragedy.
I'm so happy to see someone - anyone - writing about this wonderful lost treasure of a movie.
There are things about Strange Days that ordinary viewers may find it difficult to appreciate. One of them is the film's expert appropriation of the tropes of the cyberpunk subgenre as popularized by writers like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Gibson's novels in particular were a clear influence; many of his novels feature a similar male-female role reversal as well as a fascination with the strange energy produced when wildly different worlds collide - pop music producers colluding with cops, drug dealers crashing society parties, Japanese businessmen riding through South Central in armored cars - the movie is a love letter to his work and is infinitely more faithful to its spirit than the risible "Johnny Mnemonic."
Another thing I appreciate is the film's careful and meticulous worldbuilding. Not just in the filmmaker's sense of mise-en-scene, but in the writer's sense of the construction of a plausible and logical alternate reality to both house and nurture the drama. The film is a how-to guide for the delivery of unobtrusive exposition. Every frame is packed with details that tell you about the LA of this hypothetical 1999, from the ubiquitous presence of widescreen televisions to barricaded windows and a Club in every car. And every line of dialogue adds another brick to the edifice while at the same time never feeling like two characters telling each other things they should by rights already know. And! The movie gets to have its science-fiction cake and eat it too, creating an eerily tangible near-future while feeling as expansive and populated, as unconstrained by effects and costume budgets, as any contemporary drama.
I also admire the film's soundtrack. With the lone exception of Peter Gabriel's haunting closing vocals almost none of the featured acts were or have ever been big, and when the musical history of the 1990s is written almost none will have more than a footnote. Don't tune into VH1's nineties specials expecting to hear from Me Phi Me, or Kate Gibson, or Prong. And yet. And yet. When I remember that selfsame decade, it will be with a mixture of emotions captured and reproduced with infinitely greater fidelity by these artists than by, say, Pearl Jam.
The movie has flaws, though, and I feel that the casting of Juliette Lewis was the biggest. Yes, she can sing - sort of - but the script paints her as an ethereal beauty, a figure of innocence and longing, at least in Nero's head. I like Juliette Lewis but there is absolutely nothing ethereal about her - she is as earthy and profane as it gets - and because the plot is powered by the idea that three separate men would do literally anything to have her, it strains our credulity for everything that follows from that; it makes the movement of the story harder to swallow than it should be.
People talk about the last five minutes as a flaw, though, and while I can see their argument - in a city on the edge of anarchy, how does a burgeoning race riot, with thousands of spectators angrily watching Vincent D'Onofrio beat and taser Angela Basset, turn a few minutes later into a joyous party just because he gets stopped? - I can't say that I feel the same. The resolution moves me. While the rest of the movie is a collection of all the anxieties we felt at the end of the century (many of which, oh too many, were borne out) those last five minutes are to me a time capsule containing a perfectly-preserved moment of transcendent hope - joy and love and well-wishes, fresh from 1994, mint in box. I can't turn up my nose at that reminder of what it felt like to look forward into the future with excitement, even a nervous, twitchy sort of excitement. And even though Strange Days was no oracle - the millennium was neither anarchic nor transcendental - that in itself is a welcome reminder that while many of my fondest hopes may not be borne out in the coming decade it's entirely possible that many of my worst fears will similarly fail to materialize, and that whatever happens it will probably be a surprise to us all.
Congrats Michael! I'm a fellow Filipino and loves films a lot as well. Ebert has a really big heart to feature passionate foreign critics. Just really hope some films being shown in the States will be shown here simultaneously if not, not too late so we film lovers can get too watch them.
Roger and Michael, do you think Bigelow will make Oscar history this year?
The Hurt Locker is just a brilliant, brilliant film!
That rape scene in the movie is so disgusting and gratuitous that it totally overshadowed any good qualities the film had. Sure, the film is very imaginative, creative, blah blah blah, but I'm so sick of watching women getting tortured and raped. It's so overdone in the movies. I recall the film Dressed To Kill getting a lot of praise from critics, but that film similarly had a sadistic scene of a woman getting butchered. enough already!
Michael - really appreciate you covering "Strange Days", which is one of my favourite films, and certainly one that's overlooked. Have to say, though, although I agree with you about the movie's inventiveness, fearlessness and tension, I don't think the characters are as original as you point out. Lenny is an ex-cop who's fallen from grace, Mace is a tough single mother who has to focus on her responsibilities relentlessly because that's her only option, Philo is a powerful and manipulative sleaze... these are familiar types. The drama and relationships are powerful, and central to the film, but not the most unique parts of it; I think it's the visual and musical style, the exhilaration of the pace and filmmaking, and the way Bigelow deals with people and their surroundings as having a constant and evolving effect on each other that make the movie great.
Keep up the wonderful writing. I enjoyed reading your blog. Thanks
Kick ass assessment of the movie.
Thank you all for the kind words. :)
Humdinger,
I certainly hope LOCKER wins. But I won't be surprised if AVATAR gets it (I like it, but it's far from the best of last year).
Excellent, excellent review.
Excellent review - thank you for bringing this great movie to light! This is one of my favorites, and where I saw the brilliance of Angela Bassett. I agree, why is she not a superstar by now? I love Kathryn Bigelow's work and hope she gets many more chances to direct action movies. Thank you, Michael, for your thoughtful review.
THANK YOU for bringing light to one of the most underrated and underappreciated films of the 1990's. "Strange Days" was nothing short of a masterpiece in my opinion. True, the film itself had a few shortcomings, but the experience of the film did more than make up for any area that left something to be desired. Kathryn Bigelow's direction was taut, raw and in your face. The limo chase to the docks that was shot almost entirely in close up was claustrophobia in full tilt action mode. The performances were spot on. Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett and Juliette Lewis inhabited these characters in ways that other actors should envy. The soundtrack was amazing. The contributions by Deep Forest are, to this day, some of the most stunning and inspired pieces of electronica that I have heard. It was just a great film, and one that truly hasn't been more relevant than it is now. Talk about being ahead of its time. I truly hope that more people seek it out now that Kathryn Bigelow is getting some much deserved attention.
The Hurt Locker should win and I am rooting for it. Its an important film. But with the hype of the now huge-and-bigger-than-Titanic Avatar, I wouldnt be surprise as well if it wins...
I don't know if I would have said that Strange Days was a "pleasure" to see. It was interesting, and technically wonderful, and I did like the characters, but at the end of the day, the intensity of the POV violence (seriously, watching rape and murder through the eyes of the perpetrator? beyond disturbing) made this a one-viewing-only experience.
Thanks for reviewing one of my favourite films. I've always loved Fiennes' performance in this movie, and I like to hold it up as one of the best examples of cyberpunk on the silver screen.
Though I do agree with Rae Lori: Hollywood films have this tendency to boil down complex social issues to a handful of obvious villains and not address the underlying causes. The Hurricane with Denzel Washington is another example: Rubin Carter's wrongful arrest and conviction seemed to be less about the issues of the US civil-rights movement and more about a (fictional) cop with a personal grudge.
I loved Strange Days and thought it was seriously underrated. Some aspects of the film are now obviously a bit dated (it covers Y2K which is, for us, 10 years past now), but it still contains many timeless elements. I also found Bigelow's earlier movie, Point Break, to be equally underrated...I think many people thought that a surfer movie starring Keanu Reaves would be brainless, when it fact it's a brilliant suspenseful thriller and a character study of adrenaline junkies, not unlike Hurt Locker.
Strange Days has been one of my favorite Sci-Fi films since I first saw it in the theater. I always like movies where you don't really know what is going on until the end. Excellent cast, great movie, seen by too few people. Hopefully this review will convince some people to check it out!
Terrific insightful review of a very underrated, well-made hidden gem. Nice to read a non-American outsider perspective on a Hollywood movie's themes and politics.
Really I think to a degree that the "Nerd Internet" (Aint it Cool News, CHUD, etc.) really bore me with their limited critical reach. But with the dying print criticism and the rise of the Internet Blog...we must take what we can get.
And some movie blogs are even worth reading. This one, Ebert's personal musings blog, and the Outlaw Vern*, who for my money is the best (and only one worth reading honestly) of that Nerd bunch.
http://outlawvern.com/
*=Helps too when his reviews aren't clogged up with endless opening paragraphs about their childhood or nerd loves for thousands favorite movies, etc.
Thanks for pointing out a must-see film from the past I'll have to view. So agree with your comments about Basset and Lewis being undervalued and underused – they are greats.
Another vote for this film. I saw it when it came out and I thought it was incredible, and its only gotten better by comparison since. Good on 'ya for remembering it.
Also, in a world where 90-second movie trailers commonly make you feel like you've experienced the entire arc of a movie and all the best moments, this is a good 3-min work.
Day 1 was officially a success !!! Yay !!! There were a few rough patches... I took deep breaths and chose my words wisely or said nothing at all. This is huge for me LOL !!! Thanks guys I LOVE YOU ALL AT K-LOVE SO MUCH !!!
The events of the past few days in eygpt bring to light how corrupt any and all current government bodies can be. And it really is a shame. We entrust these leaders with our trust that they will do what is right for the people that put them in the position of power and they abuse it, often times rather blatantly. I applaud the eyptian people for standing up for themselves. it is my hope that the people will be heard & that the current government will do the right thing (stepping down if need be). But I also hope that whatever leadership takes control will be one that truly will workon behalf of the eyptian people.
This is getting a bit more subjective, but I much prefer the Zune Marketplace. The interface is colorful, has more flair, and some cool features like 'Mixview' that let you quickly see related albums, songs, or other users related to what you're listening to. Clicking on one of those will center on that item, and another set of "neighbors" will come into view, allowing you to navigate around exploring by similar artists, songs, or users. Speaking of users, the Zune "Social" is also great fun, letting you find others with shared tastes and becoming friends with them. You then can listen to a playlist created based on an amalgamation of what all your friends are listening to, which is also enjoyable. Those concerned with privacy will be relieved to know you can prevent the public from seeing your personal listening habits if you so choose.