Every generation has a unique visual identity that can be represented by the films of their time. The ’70s was a wildly free era of experimentation, where filmmakers pushed the boundaries of what movies could be, and are very eclectic as a result.Movies from the ‘80ssaw a conservative pushback from the style of the ’70s, and became a more conventional blockbuster era of cinema, full of hyper-masculine action stars, teenage adventure stories, and easy-to-understand narratives. While still full of familiar blockbuster hits, the ’90s became another era of experimentation, with the massive rise of indie films featuring slower-moving plots and experimental dialogue that no longer needed to service the plot. All of these eras have a distinct identity that makes them fun to go back to, and act as powerful sources of nostalgia for those who grew up in them.
Millennials are now reaching that age where they might become nostalgic for their media era, but films from the2000saren’t widely acknowledged for having a visual identity. However, there are a lot of films with a strong visual identity that only existed during the decade. The 2000s was a loud era of excessive visual extremes and an over-the-top edge that has since gone out of style in today’s era of filmmaking. It’s a style that can best be summarized by the simple words: “You wouldn’t steal a car”.
For anyone who grew up watching movies in the 2000s, that sentence was inescapable. It was an anti-piracy PSA that played at the beginning of almost every DVD released around that time. It featured raw and grainy camera footage, harsh color grading, industrial techno music, and a wildly chaotic editing style. It’s the perfect representation of what some of the films from this era were doing around that time. With that in mind, let’s break down the origin of and evolution of edgy Y2K Cinema.
The Rise of Latin American Cinema
The origin of this style has its roots in Latin America, with one of the first examples of it coming from the Mexican filmAmores Perros.Directed by Alejandro González IñárrituofBirdmanandTheRevenant fame, this film put Mexican cinema on the mainstream map with a series of dark and harrowing stories connected by the event of a single horrifying car accident. It featured a raw visual style that felt wholly unique for its time, and gave the film a grounded feel that matched the harshness of its cruel world. During the more intense moments of the film, the camera work and editing devolve into chaos, with shaky camera angles and brisk editing cuts in full force. The film would effectively go on to inspire a whole new era of Latin American cinema in the 2000s.
The next film to play off this style wouldn’t come from Mexico, but much further south, with the release ofCity of God, a Brazilian film about kids growing up in the slums of 1970s Rio de Janeiro. LikeAmores Perrosbefore it, its visuals are raw and grainy, with oversaturated color grading, an even more dynamic and chaotic editing style, and an equally edgy harrowing tale about growing up in a harsh urban underbelly. The film achieved international commercial and critical success, eventually winning several awards, and even making it ontoTime Magazine’s top 100 films of all time list. It was at this point that Hollywood started paying attention.
The success of these films would go on to inspire another Latin American filmmaker, Robert Rodriguez, who would adopt this style for his blockbuster action filmOnce Upon a Time in Mexico. Containing a star-studded Hollywood cast, and itself being a more Hollywood production, the presentation ofOnce Upon a time in Mexicowould have a cleaner visual style, and would replace the grounded edginess of its predecessors with over the top blockbuster action. However, it adopted the same frantic camera shots and editing style ofCity of GodandAmores Perros, and it would inspire other films in the U.S. that would take the style to more visual extremes.
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Hollywood Takes Notice
The unique look of theseLatin American filmsquickly started a trend. Soon afterOnce Upon a Time in Mexico, a whole wave of similarly-styled action films flooded Hollywood, each containing some visual elements of the films previously talked about. As one of many examples, Michael Bay’s sequel toBad Boyscontained the warm oversaturated color grading and some of the editing style while adding an energetic industrial techno score to complement its action. Likewise,Mission: Impossible IIIblended the visual elements of these films into the established tone of the previous two films.
Later in the decade, Jason Statham vehicles likeCrankwould effectively embrace the Y2K aesthetic, and action films in general would switch to a shakier boots-on-the-ground style of action. It made for an era of cinema that had a unique vibe, but also made many of these films feel the same in a lot of ways, as not much was being done to evolve the style further, nor was it being used as effectively as it was in its Latin American roots.
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The Evolution of the Style
However, the stagnation of the Y2K aesthetic changed with the release ofMan on Fire,starring Denzel Washington, which would go on to push the style to its most visual extremes. Returning the aesthetic to its Latin American roots, the story takes place in Mexico City and follows a former CIA operative, who is hired to protect the daughter of a wealthy family. After she’s kidnapped during a violent shootout, Washington’s character goes on a rampage across Mexico to find her.
It’s a criminally underrated film that is obnoxiously dripping with the Y2K-era vibes. Its aesthetic is so unapologetically of its era in a way that may be off-putting to some, but for those with a taste for it, it scratches that itch like no other. The exaggerated color grading, crazy shaky cinematography, chaotic editing, and thumping industrial techno are all here and pushed to their absolute limits. Despite its over-the-top art direction, the story has a lot of substance that harkens back to the emotional drama of the Latin American films that started the trend.
Man on Firereally takes the time to get you to love the little girl as she breaks down the emotional barriers of our hardened protagonist, which makes it sting all the more when she’s eventually taken. Washington’s transformation from a pathetic sad man to raging madman is equally compelling, and his performance really sells the character’s pain.
The evolution of this style would happen once more with Michael Mann’s film remake ofMiami Vice,starring Colin Farrelland Jamie Foxx. The film sets the tone for the vibe it’s going for within the first minute of the movie as it abruptly opens with a Linkin Park/Jay-Z mashup blaring in a moodily lit nightclub as Farrell’s James Crockett calmly orders a gin and tonic. The film has a raw grainy aesthetic, similar toAmores PerrosandCity of God,but takes it even a step further, some moments looking like rough camcorder footage.
Its color grading is just as exaggerated, but on the opposite side of the color spectrum, focusing more on cooler tones of blue and gray than the warm orange and yellow tones of past Y2K films. The music switches between drum and bass and synth techno music depending on the intensity of the scene.Miami Viceitself is devoid of any emotional character development or drama, and is written in a way that is a little hard to follow at times, but this strangely doesn’t detract from the movie. The moody atmosphere, the colors, the texture — they all blend together to create an overwhelmingly powerful vibe that’s easy to get lost in. It manages to take the Y2K aesthetic in a fresh new direction, and to this day there’s no other movie that looks or feels quite like it.
The 2000s was an era of visual extremes, where camera visuals, colors, cinematography, and editing were pushed in new directions that gave the films of their time a raw pulpy edge to them. It’s a style that can seem dated by today’s standards, as the film industry has mostly abandoned it in pursuit of visual realism. However, if you grew up in the age of edgy anti-piracy PSAs, and find yourself nostalgic for that era of media, then rediscovering these films can make for a gratifying experience.
