* Marina Yereshenko
> I've met a person who honestly did not understand how a man could
> be against rape. ... There was a news report on TV about rape
> and murder of a model, and the guy I'm talking about just could
> not get why the male reporter was so upset about it: "How can he
> say this is terrible, wouldn't he love to do it himself, if given
> a chance?" And this person was not some crook or something, but a
> loving husband and a father, and his wife was sitting there.
Lock him up, and fast.
> However, I disagree that relations between the characters and
> their behavior were "unbelivable". First, there was nothing
> unbelivable about Basset character's "devotion" to the guy. In my
> opinion, this is what's called _friendship_. Maybe it does not
> happen too often, but it does exist. I'd like to have a friend
> like her myself. Besides, they show things like that between male
> friends all the time and no one finds it strange.
It is friendship, but it is also more. She is in love with him, in
particular the romantic and idealist part of him. More about that
in a moment --
> About the guy's self-destruction, it's even more realistic. There
> are plenty of people falling for someone they try to rescue and
> who keeps telling them to get the Hell lost. Actually, in real
> life, it's a lot worse, and the guy in the movie was lucky to get
> away that easily. If you think "normal" people "with high
> self-esteem" don't do that, think Kelly Flinn and what happened to
> her. This part of the plot was anything but unbelievable. They
> don't usually show this in action movies, that's true, but that
> what makes this one so different.
His trying to rescue someone who keeps telling him to get the Hell
lost (Juliette Lewis' character) is a part of the problem, but his
problems are even bigger than that, because of two additional
factors. First, he is a junkie -- a memory junkie hooked to stored
memories like the ones he is pushing, and the memories he is
addicted to are the ones he recorded from better days, the time he
was together with Lewis' character. This is a messy situation, to
say the least. Second, he believes (mistakenly, for a long time of
the movie), that all he has left is his solemn promise to be there
for her, to take care of her -- he believes that this is the only
intact part of his character, so that giving up this promise and
stop trying to save Lewis' character would mean for him to give up
his own character and thus destroy the last part of himself.
And a central point in all this is that it is his romantic and
idealist character traits that is driving him deeper into the mess.
In fact, his idealism and romanticism are so strong that he doesn't
care that it has set him on a course of self-destruction. And these
are the redeeming traits that gain him sympathy from the viewer (and
love from Bassett's character).
So I think that describing his character as unpleasant is really
very superficial.
I'd also like to point out that most male movie characters belong to
neat, simple, stereotypical and BORING categories (like "hero",
"hero's teacher", "bad guy" etc. -- it's not that such categories in
themselves need to be stereotypical, but that they so often are used
in formulaic and superficial ways, especially when used to express
gender), while Fiennes' character in Strange Days is outside such
simplistic categorization -- and thus will appear interesting to
some and alienating or unpleasant to others.
> I agree that the final scene when a big white guy in a suit comes
> down from the helicopter and saves the world peace was a little
> cheesy. Maybe not even a little.
I agree that his (the police chief) change of mind seemed a little
unmotivated -- what caused him to change his mind when he didn't
want to listen to them earlier? But there is nothing cheesy about
the end of this movie. How can a dark, violent cyberpunkish movie
have a nice Hollywood-type happy end, you ask? Well, it doesn't.
Consider the following:
* the racial problems and violence of that society aren't solved,
only a particular crime seems to be brought to justice
* the male protagonist doesn't save his former girlfriend from doom
and live happily ever after with her (subversive)
* the male protagonist is saved from doom by his new girlfriend
(gender subversive)
* the black woman gets the male, the white woman does not (subversive)
* the feminine, helpless woman loses to the intelligent, heroic,
not-gender stereotyped woman (very subversive)
There is nothing cheesy or typical Hollywood about the end of this
movie. On the contrary, the end subverts many of the common
messages from Hollywood. And it does so efficiently BECAUSE it is a
happy end. The alternative to Hollywood cliche happy ends is not
doom and destruction, but realistic and non-stereotypical happy
ends.
> And finally, bad box office is not always an indication of
> worthlessness.
Perhaps this movie is too subtle in some ways (like character
complexities), and too direct and concrete in other ways (rape,
racism) for the average Joe America.
Thomas Gramstad
thomasg@ifi.uio.no
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:07:37 PDT