Kathryn Bigelow’s New Year’s Eve movie is Peak Cyberpunk

The cyberpunk movement has given us some of the best Science fiction movies: Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, and yes, The Matrix. But my personal favorite is Tech noir that came out at the height of the cyberpunk craze – and then disappeared.

Even though it was released in 1995, Strange Days feels like it could have been released yesterday. It’s one of those rare old movies that depicts technology Virtual reality Without turning it into a gimmick.

Strange Days takes place in Los Angeles in 1999 during the last 48 hours of the millennium. Lenny Nero, played by Ralph Fiennes, is a former cop who is now promoting an illegal virtual reality experience called Playback.

Nero’s friend and bodyguard, Mace (Angela Bassett), tries to keep him grounded in reality and out of trouble. Together they work to track down a brutal rapist and murderer – a man who uses virtual reality consoles to record his crimes from his own perspective.

The film wasted no time in placing me in its contradictory surroundings: the opening scene is an armed robbery filmed from a first-person perspective, with the robber evading the cops and jumping from one rooftop to another. A few scenes later, I saw tanks on the streets of Los Angeles and heard radio callers announcing that the world would end at midnight on January 1, 2000.

Strange days remind me of the best Black mirror Rings – very annoying and uncomfortably close to home. Director Kathryn Bigelow was influenced by the 1992 Los Angeles riots and incorporated elements of racial tension and police violence into her work. The result is a film that is sometimes difficult to watch but impossible to look away from.

At the same time, Strange Days is grounded in emotion. Nero (Fiennes) spends much of the film reminiscing about his failed relationship with singer Faith (played by actress-turned-rocker Juliette Lewis). Lying in bed as footage of happier days plays, he can trick himself into thinking he’s skating with Faith again – until the dial stops spinning and he opens his eyes, back in the lonely present day.

“It doesn’t just mean the TV is better,” says Nero, demonstrating VR technology to one of his clients. “This is life.”

But Bassett’s character, Mace, thinks otherwise, and at one point confronts Nero over his association with his “used feelings.”

“This is your life!” Mace says. “Right here! Now! It’s real time, you hear me? Real time, real time, not on!”

While I was watching Strange Days in the year 2025, I couldn’t help but think about the virtual reality devices that exist today. Virtual reality headsets such as Meta Quest 3 and Augmented reality glasses coming from Google It brings us closer than ever to playback technology in film. And immersive spatial videos for Apple Vision Pro It can make you feel like you are actually experiencing a 3D recorded memory. As I thought about the similarities between our current technology and the Strange Days boot discs, I wondered if the future wanted to be haunted by the past.

Even though the film is 30 years old, Strange Days’ special effects hold up incredibly well. While other 1995 sci-fi films, such as Hackers and Johnny Mnemonic, experimented with CGI early on, Strange Days took a more hands-on approach: characters transitioned in and out of playback shots with a slight analogue distortion effect, just as you find while watching home videos on VHS tapes. Point-of-view shots are carefully choreographed, and the resulting footage feels like you’re watching it through the eyes of the recorder.

Strange Days also features outstanding musical works. Juliette Lewis, who plays Faith, performs a couple of PJ Harvey songs in on-screen performances that recall the best of ’90s grunge. Rapper Jericho One (played by Glenn Plummer) makes scathing social commentary in his music video. Contemporary artists Aphex Twin, Deee-Lite and Skunk Anansie perform during the film’s final act, a raucous New Year’s Eve party in downtown Los Angeles. (It was A A real concert With an attendance of 10,000 people).

Strange days It is an exciting action film and a stunning exploration of technology and memory. I’m amazed at its box office success in 1995, and I wish it had gotten the recognition it deserved at the time. However, I’m glad this sci-fi masterpiece is available to stream today. Although Strange Days doesn’t have a memorable title, the movie itself is.

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