Fan Comments about Strange Days

From Emery, on the Fiennes Forum

"Well, my major news is that I rented Strange Days last night! Blockbuster didn't have it, so I went to the local alternative video store. The movie had some problems, mostly in direction and casting, but RF was the film's savior.

I enjoyed the plot a lot, truly, RF did an incredible job with what he had...I was dismayed with the other performances, though. Juliet Lewis was OK I guess, but Angela Bassett just didn't seem to fit opposite Fiennes' character. He played Lenny very low-key yet intensely, but she played Mace over-dramatically, too emotionally, too loudly opposite Lenny. I found her pretty unbelievable in parts. Max wasn't very good at all.

The movie, as I said, was pretty darn good over all. I must say that the scene which struck me most was early on, when Juliet Lewis (Faith) was on stage singing "Hardly Wait" by PJ Harvey (one of my favorites by her). I was riveted. The camera focuses on JL sliding, grinding across the stage for the first verse, then pans to Fiennes, beginning with his boots, moving excruciatingly slowly up his leather-clad legs, then gliding over his leather jacket and terrible tie, finally arriving at his face, wracked with longing, unrequited love, the taste, the thirste, the physical need for something which he can no longer have, and the ultimate misery of his unanswered need. Though I was sitting on my couch, my knees were week.

Never, I think, have I seen such open, tender, hopeless longing envisaged on a person's screen face. The slow pan up his body combined with the song's shift from thrashing lyrics to simple, seductive drumstick beats and the subsequent flashes back to his face in the midst of the song is cinematically overwhelming, almost perfect. I'll say this once: I've never drooled over RF, never really desired him, never actually become weak in the knees at the sight of him; but that seen changed it all. My god. I'm sorry for saying this, but I've never wanted him as much as I did then. Wow! That one scene was so affecting. The rest of the movie was OK, but I generally felt that he was too greasy. Anyway...

There's something about Ralph Fiennes and PJ Harvey that equals pure lust and longing. Both can be so raw yet subtle in their expressions....Anyone know what kind of music he likes? Probably not PJ Harvey. No, Lenny would like her. I was so affected by that scene that I ransacked my roommates PJ Harvey collection for the one CD that contains "Hardly Wait" (her 4-Track Demos) and "Rid of Me" (her Dry album) and listened to them on repeat again and again. In fact, I was so inspired that I even borrowed my roommate's leather pants and wore a very Strange Days-ish outfit to class....My goodness, I'm going to be thinking about that scene for months.

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