Of all the places an "old European" would like to visit in such a vast and varied country as the United States, Los Angeles must be close to the bottom of my list. The notion of a big urban sprawl where an automobile is held to be almost indispensable appals me and the proximity to the world's dominant industrial dream factory gives me the shivers.
Yet such a city, seen as backdrop — and occasionally subject matter — of countless feature films and documentaries and as recounted by American friends, exercises a magnetic fascination and sometimes future-minded appeal.
Barely three years after the Los Angeles race riots (Wikipedia) set parts of the town ablaze and claimed at least 50 lives, it became the place where Kathryn Bigelow and her movie team got 20,000 people to the Millennium rave party that became the setting for the last part of an astonishing and provocative film.
In 1995, 'Strange Days' was a box office disaster in the States and pulled in a mere 160,000 people when it was released here in France.
This much "underrated" movie is, however, being rehabilitated in well-deserved terms by some users at the iMDB.
In a racially explosive city where the police use armoured cars and tanks as well as riot gear, sacked LA cop Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) has turned seedy, persuasive dealer in "virtual reality" wire tapes, or clips which are no games. These clips are recordings taken from the cerebral cortex, enabling the voyeur customer to get inside the head of somebody else and share their experience, emotions and memories.
Sex is, of course, a hot commodity. At the nastiest, foulest end of the market — a place where Nero refuses to go on account of the few ethical values he has left — "snuff" recordings are hotter still.
Some wire tape clients get a hell of a kick out of the direct experience of violent death, taken from the head of murderer or victim, and, most appallingly, in the case of the well-connected killer who proves extremely dangerous to Nero and his friends, both.
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