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Each Day, A Film:
January 26th, 2012 (Retrospective)

Sometimes, though, you just have to talk about what you love, not what you have a complicated relationship with, because if you can't write about something you have a deep passion for, what's the point of writing at all?

That's why this post is about Strange Days.



If you remember, a while ago, there was a chat about Johnny Mnemonic, which took a lot of effort to make something look like it took a lot of effort. While no shortage of effort went into Strange Days - for a fact - it makes it look like it's doing what Johnny Mnemonic tried to do effortlessly.

Don't misunderstand me; for a film made in 1996 about 1999 it's amazingly of it's time, down to minidiscs and Skunk Anansie and pre-millenial angst. At the same time, the 'time' that the film is of completely ties in with the William Gibson ideas of Cyberpunk that it may as well be a sacred text; the subversion of technology, the gentle but unavoidable breakdown of society, the broken hero who can't shake off a past he'd be better off without; this isn't a great summary, but it'll have to do.

And when your broken hero is Ralph Fiennes - and it's something Ralph Fiennes squeezes in between Schindler's List and The English Patient - then it either works or it doesn't, and in this case - in my humble opinion - it seems to work.

Let's bring back the personal element to proceedings, too, because I got lucky in seeing this film on BBC2 on New Years Eve 2000 or 2001 at 2am, back in the dim and distant, and at the time BBC2's scheduling fucking rocked, because someone had the bright idea to put an undergrossing cult American film about the Milennium on the channel on Milennium eve, which struck my then still-just-teenage self as obscenely cool.

I've watched it on a couple of New Years Eves' since, but it didn't retain quite the same kind of vigor.

This is my devotion showing, too, but I don't actually have any problems with any part of the film. The story - based, apparently, by James Cameron on the Rodney King verdict - ties in extremely nicely with the Technology of memory recording, instead of the two sharing a nominal relationship. The characters are well-played, the hero's far from perfect, and the ending is, well, amazing.

I wish there were more to say other than it's perfect (for me, at least), but when there's nothing more to say, well, let's say nothing more.