Strange Days on PAL Laserdisc

Jeremy Clarke reviews Strange Days Distributed by
Pioneer LDCE

Cat. No: PLFEC 34731
Cert: 18
Running time: 139 minutes
Year: 1995
Pressing: UK, 1997
Sides: 3 (CLV)
Chaptered: YES
Sound: Dolby Surround
Widescreen: 2.35:1
Price: £34.99

Director:
Starring:

This sounds promising on paper – a ‘scriptment’ (somewhere between a treatment and a script) by writer-director James Cameron (The Terminator movies, The Abyss) which he handed to director Kathryn Bigelow while he himself went off to direct True Lies. (As a companion piece to this disc, the scriptment itself – published by Penguin Books at £6.99 as Strange Days: Original Text By James Cameron – is well worth tracking down.) Bigelow’s pedigree includes such critical favourites as the vampire flick Near Dark, cop/serial killer thriller Blue Steel and surfing/skydiving undercover cop outing Point Break.

Expectations that the project was in good hands with Bigelow are confirmed by her casting sense. Fiennes is at his peak as illicit Virtual Reality (VR) dealer Lenny Nero, bringing a dimension of likeable vulnerability to a seemingly irredeemable scumbag; Bassett has never bettered her portrayal of the professional limousine chauffeur who disapproves of his livelihood while remaining his friend. If Lewis is passable rather than outstanding as a junkie turned rising thrash metal rock singer (for this writer, her best performance remains Cape Fear‘s fragile teenager), well, okay, that’s two out of three leads.

Working your way down the cast list, the overall impression is that even on the smaller bit-parts considerable care has been afforded – and it pays off handsomely.

Unusually for a Pioneer LDCE release, this PAL disc boasts a supplement section (side 3) containing two trailers (more of the first, a teaser trailer, in a moment), a music video (Selling Jesus Again, by Skunk Anansie, featured in the Mother Of All Parties sequence), a couple of scenes excised from the release version, (static) storyboard sequences, examples of the specially created ‘Faces Of The World’ (billboard designs featuring faces from all round the globe to celebrate the year 2000) and even some production stills. Side three is appropriately rounded off with a trailer for True Lies (also available from Pioneer).

cinematography
never looks less than
stunning

The teaser trailer features Lenny delivering a monologue to camera. “I’m the Magic Man… the Santa Claus of the subconscious…,” and telling us about the Forbidden Fruit, plugging illicit experience “pure… uncut” straight into the cerebral cortex. “Are we beginning to see the possibilities here?” Titles on rapidly edited primary colour backgrounds against thrashing power chord riffs provide as good an explanation of the set-up as you’re ever going to get…

Lenny is a disgraced ex-cop turned dealer in SQUID – Superconducting QUantum Interference Device aka The Wire, originally developed as an FBI surveillance tool but now the province of street VR dealers. It seems a shame this teaser trailer doesn’t open side one.

Lenny might be a long way down the food chain, but he has his standards – he won’t deal in Blackjacks (recordings of the wearer’s death). But he’ll sell a client anything else. He’ll also while away his own privacy with taped memories of his ex-girlfriend, former hooker Faith Justin (Lewis). That’s as close to her as he’ll get, though, because these days Faith’s a rising thrash metal singer gigging at clubs like The Retinal Fetish.

Close friend Mace (Bassett) counters Lenny’s obsessive rerunning of (recorded) memories of Faith with the legend, “memories were meant to fade – they were designed that way for a reason”. But he just can’t seem to help himself.

Stunning set pieces include a flaming car driving off the end of a pier, its occupants forced to escape underwater, and the final reel’s showstopping Mother Of All Parties where four crowded blocks of Los Angeles dance the night away to celebrate the approach of the year 2000. The SQUID sequences – vicarious POV wearer experiences – are superbly handled (wearer’s voice commenting on rear speakers throughout). But there’s a problem here – the SQUID premise is so interesting that it’s a real waste ultimately to throw it away on a none-too-original subplot involving a serial murderer.

Flawed masterpiece it may be, but Strange Days is perfect for LD presentation: Pioneer’s crisp transfer truly does it justice. Matthew F Leonetti’s cinematography, much of it shot at night, never looks less than stunning, cramming a veritable wealth of Lily Calvert’s extensive production design detail into the frame. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Mother Of All Parties, with it’s urban thoroughfares packed with teeming, jiving masses. At the other end of the film’s scale, the POV shot SQUID sequences – largely unbroken single takes with extraordinary sound design by the great Gary Rydstrom – look equally superb.

Side breaks are abrupt, though it’s difficult to see how they could have been less so given the punchy overall pacing. The final Mother Of All Parties sequence is sensibly isolated on the third side along with the aforementioned extras. Chaptering is fair rather than perfect, with chapter 13 starting somewhat annoyingly in the middle of a sequence in Lenny’s flat. Chaptering carps aside, it’s a great disc. “You know you want it,” says Lenny. One can’t help but feel he’s right.

Check out Pioneer‘s Web site.

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Dom Robinson

Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.

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