Dystopia
I desperately want to write an entry today that is positive. One that extols the virtues of man and stokes the flames of hope. Yet, I can’t seem to find the words to begin such an entry. Instead, I am bogged down with sadness, depressed and deeply disappointed in my fellow citizens.
Last night I watched Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days, possibly the most frighteningly accurate film in the dystopic cannon. It’s about the breakdown and corruption of the criminal justice system, the neverendingly relentless uphill battle for racial equity, and the normalized sentiment that violence against women is par for the futuristic course. The film is dazzling as it is shocking, hitting so close to home there were moments when my jaw was simply agape. Not so much at the visuals but at the realisation that 30 years on we have barely taken a step forward.
The story is set in Los Angeles roughly over the 24 hours before the dawn of the new millennium. Already before the clock has stricken 12 on January 1, 2000, the city is in chaos with unchecked mayhem in the streets accompanied by the complications of heavy policing. Ralph Fiennes plays the most refined sleazeball pusher to date, a seller of hedonistic virtual reality fantasies, that happens to be illegal. The first third of the very long film, we’re following the character Lenny Nero as he goes about his clandestine business, poshly sweet talking his way through deals and schemes. Everything’s roses, until he finds himself in a mess that’s a lot bigger than the mere death of one his ‘virtual hookers.’
I love a good genre movie that gets you with its social critique and Bigelow is a master. Even in 1995 when the film was originally released, the seductive dangers of technology were apparent, and not in the out-of-this-world way that Blade Runner or A.I. depict. No, in Strange Days technology subversively brings about the fall of humanity by stroking our pleasure centres. Feeding us the drug we so badly want: numbness. The world is spiraling out of our control, we don’t know what the truth is, who we are, what we’re meant to do, so please, oh please, give us that tasty cosmic hit of surreality to make the confusion go away. And fed to the population it is, from the richest to the poorest everyone wants that sweet high. Even as the revolutionaries warn of global upheaval, of the time when the meek shall inherit the earth, people look away, parroting the words of the dawn of a new age as their eyes search for the next distraction. What changes the tide is an act of such barbaric violence, that even the collective paralysis won’t blur what is seen and felt in real time.
Why must we get to such conclusions for things to change? I am not so pessimistic as to say humans make the same mistakes in the repetition of history, because if that were the case we wouldn’t still be here. But I do wonder why when the bells toll, we do not heed the call? We only change course when the destruction is so stark we’re forced into action because our feet have no ground to stand on. What we are witnessing in the world today, is built upon on the same original themes as always: greed and hatred. What’s different now is that we have little machines that allow us to alter our conscious states. Strange Days ends on a hopeful note--compliments of the fierce Angela Bassett as Mace--but its protagonists have to remain conscious and strong long enough to take the beating the world needs to witness to wake up. That’s the real tragedy of dystopia, it creeps in when we’re sleeping wide awake.
*Image: Unknown Montreal Graffiti Artist*
