August 8, 3:00PMFinsbury Park Picturehouse
dir. Albert Pyun
USA, 1992, 96 mins
August 8, 5:00PM
Peckhamplex
In the future, chaos is rampant as 'information terrorists' threaten to destroy order in society. Alex is a part-man, part-machine LAPD cop who is the best at what he does. When one of the terrorists calls him a machine, Alex questions his humanity and decides to leave the force. His final assignment is to apprehend an old colleague who has stolen some data. However, there is more than meets the eye and Alex must question his allegiance.
Pyun creates kinetic VHS-core action like no other. Seemingly born from a need to build from the wreckage of a broken world, Pyun’s films are frequently explosive, tropey and threadbare. This however couldn’t be less true for one of his arguable masterpieces; Nemesis, a film conceived of as a proto-The Matrix high octane thriller with emphasis on the aesthetics of being cool. Sunglasses and dusters abound but it’s the inventive and thrilling camera work that gives this all guns a blazing thriller an auteurist shine that stands out amongst his straight-to video contemporaries. Always focused on outsiders on the run from sinister agents, always obsessed with cyborgs and their quest for humanity; Pyun speaks to the paranoiac video store dweller, offering comic book escapism that takes the form of end-of-the-world rollercoasters dipped in everything you may think was once cool.
This screening will be preceded by an intro.
- Kit Ramsay
starring —
