Review of Strange Days (1995) by Yash S — 22 Jan 2009

A pure work of art. Kathryn Bigelow films the impossible, pushing the envelope on what is physically possible with cameras. This is real filmmaking, all done without any obnoxious CGI. Strange Days is not your garden variety hi-tech action thriller. Far from it. Through the concept of virtual reality, the viewer is forced to contemplate the very act of viewing a film. An underlying theme very much at play here is how we all vicariously relive fragments of other people's lives, be it through movies, books, music, or broadly speaking any and every form of fiction. The film interpolates disparate elements of anarchy, rebellion, autocracy, technology, pyschopathy, and the nature of love. It is also highly sexual and perversely violent in a way that, say for instance even Tarantino's films are not. Thats because the extremes that this film goes to are NOT meant to titillate, they really will shock the hell out of you. Unlike Tarantino and his ilk, the makers of Strange Days clearly have no intention of abandoning difficult themes in favour of cheap thrills : the bleakness prevalent in Strange Days is counterpointed by genuine moments of love and tenderness, and it never borders on cheap pessimism or "existential" cop-outs.

I've read a lot of criticism about this movie that its portrayal of racism is extremely hackneyed and simplistic ; that the plot, dialogue and characters are all pedestrian. I agree to an extent with this ; there are indeed some problems with the story, especially the "twist" near the end.

The POV sequences are the highlights here, and its an absolute pity that this film went down the tubes and nobody ever worked again with the special steadicams that were devised solely for this film. Apart from the camerawork (which is without peer), there is some truly terrific editing done by the great James Cameron himself, who also wrote and produced the film. The music should fairly blow you away. How SD came and went by with no impact whatsoever and continues to be utterly ignored is beyond me, but this is real filmmaking, I say it again. Strange Days has been made entirely compromise-free, with a sheer reckless abandon that reminds you of Apocalypse Now.