007—Strange Days
Tech as a simulacra for intimacy, the (false) promise of digital witness, and hope for the future on the eve of a new millenium
Strange Days first made its way onto my radar toward the tail end of last year. At the time, fancams of Ralph Fiennes in the role of Cardinal Lawrence were in heavy circulation as the Oscar campaign for Conclave kicked into gear. Luckily for me someone shared a clip from Strange Days showcasing one of the hotter on-screen kisses to ever exist.
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For reasons that are unclear to me I thought the Kathryn Bigelow directed, James Cameron written film was a vampire movie; while it’s canonically not, elements of vampirism—the drain of technology and the panopticon—are a through line.
Strange Days was released in 1995, the same year La Haine premiered and grappled with similar themes. Instead of France, our stage is a cyberpunk, dystopian version of Los Angeles primed to boil over two days before 1999 comes to a close. It’s here that the tech-weary, friends-to-lovers noir is set into motion by a racialized police killing meant to reflect the video-taped violence and police brutality Rodney King faced.
Sound like a lot? As America’s Sweetheart said Strange Days is ‘a movie full of CHOICES’. The film’s lead, Lenny Nero (Fiennes), is a former vice squad cop turned sleazeball who uses his charm, slick-mouth, and a briefcase full of fake rolexes to peddle a virtual reality technology that enables its wearers to relive and experience a taped memory of their own or another’s life. Angela Bassett is riveting as Mace, Nero’s only real friend and the true hero of the movie. When Nero ends up unknowingly in the possession of a tape that captured the killing of Black artist Jeriko One by two white cops, mystery and action ensue toward a conclusion that is hopeful for the future, but from the angle of 2025 also incredibly naiive. Visibility is a trap, and it turns out digital witness is too.
I loosely remember Y2K. Eleven at the time, I remember asking my dad who worked in computers about it as the I could tell from the radio and tv chatter something was up. People were really scared and Bigelow as director captures the vibe with a strange prescience. A thing I love about watching older movies that imagine future tech is their overestimation of societies ability for progress. While we’ve come nowhere close to the level of tech the VR SQUID enables there are similarities to video-centered social media like instagram and tiktok.
Both provide access, doorways for the voyeur, escape from reality, and illusions of connection in an increasingly anti-social world. Strange Days goes a step further into this simulacrum of intimacy by crossing a barrier of humanity: otherness. With our current bodies, and technology, there is always a limit to our ability to step into another’s shoes. We can get close, but we can’t take it on and it’s from this friction of difference, from the uncertainty and vulnerability, that the possiblity of true intimacy lies.
When everyone venerates the experience of the other and then gets to feel venerated by (finally?) getting to experiencing that which they have determined as special whats left is empty, addictive, and dangerous enough that Strange Days’ Los Angeles has made it illegal. Riffing off of something Hayley Nahman smartly wrote this past weekend about fame, the users of the VR idealize the experience of playback more than reality. It’s as if tech is better than sex, or possibly the new sex.
Over the course of the runtime, and a whole other plot line I don’t even have time to get into, Nero grapples with his choices and grows. A life off pedestal puts him back among humanity and the possiblity of true friendship and love, or as Mace tries to tell Lenny, “This is your life — right here, right now! It's real-time. You hear me? Real time! Time to get real, not playback. You understand me?” In letting go, Lenny’s able to move forward into an uncertain new world.
A few movies this seems to be in conversation with or vice versa: La Haine, Minority report, Freaky tales, Crimes of the future, Blade runner.
I'm now going to look for Strange Days to re-watch.