Strange Days, Kathryn Bigelow (1995)

Strange Days is dystopian film with science fiction and cyber-punk elements, set in volatile, rioting Los Angeles on the eve of the Y2K “collapse” . Apocalyptic energy runs high through this film, where ambiance is just as important as the principal plotlines and characters. Strange Days is most prominently a story of virtual reality technology gone awry.
The S.Q.U.I.D device is a cutting-edge technology which hooks up to the user’s cerebral cortex and records their sensual experiences to a disk so that they may be felt and consumed by absolutely anybody. In the film, people use SQUID to satisfy curiosities ie: to see what it is like to commit a crime, or have sex with a porn star. The film’s protagonist, Lenny, for example, uses SQUID to re-live past memories with his ex-girlfriend. This technology, however, when put in the wrong hands, becomes a sadistic torture instrument. The most mind-boggling scene in the film (also the most violent and troubling) involves the rape a woman receiving a SQUID signal from her attacker, allowing her to witness her own rape and death,also allowing her to feel the sensations of the attacker layered on top of her own phsyical anguish. When Lenny receives these snuff recordings, we watch him (now three times removed from the actual victim) experiencing the violence all over again as he “jacks-in” to the woman's final moments. The film employs many POV shots and continually engages the viewer in the virtual reality. The entire concept brings to mind, among other things, Laura Mulvey’s ideaof the male gaze. The aforementioned scene attempts to eradicate the traditional politics of women on film, by making the male characters both voyeurs and victims of objectification and male violence via virtual reality. Strange Days is also reminiscent of Michael Powell’s 1960 film Peeping Tom (a film in which the protagonist holds both a camera and mirror up as he murders people) in the way that it portrays the violations and terror made possible when one identifies with the victim of a film's horror.
On top of the virtual reality elements, Strange Days also manages to fuel its apocalyptic "reality" by referencing contemporary tensions and anxieties. The film’s subplot makes obvious reference to the Rodney King murder and 1992 Los Angeles Race Riots. From this moment in history, where cops kill innocent people, where there is essentially no justice or safety, Bigelow creates a believable and recognizable world which teeters on the edge of anarchy.