I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who told
me that her biggest fear was that her son would someday became a drug addict.
She explained how she had seen it happen too many times before; good kids go
bad because of one simple misuse of some drug that then takes over their life,
destroying it in the process. After she mentioned that she makes her son watch TV
specials and movies that could instill in his mind an avoidance of drugs, I
immediately recommended Requiem for a
Dream. If ever there was a movie that teenagers should see, it’s this one.
Not that it won’t do anything for older viewers, too. It is brutally universal.
Based on a novel by Hubert Selby, Jr. that I have put off
reading for far too long, the film concerns circumstantial day-to-day events,
rather than following a large narrative. Harry (Jared Leto) and Tyrone (Marlon
Wayans) are seen at the beginning of the movie stealing Harry’s mom’s TV set to
sell for heroin money. They have big plans for their future, hoping to raise
enough money peddling small-time drugs to purchase a large amount of hard stuff
and be set for life. In on the set-up is Jared’s girlfriend Marion (Jennifer
Connelly), who wants to open a fashion shop with her parent’s allowance, but
keeps spending it all on her addictions. Then there’s the mother Sarah Goldfarb
(Ellen Burstyn), middle-aged and overweight, who receives a phone call
erroneously announcing that she has been chosen to appear on a TV show.
Obsessed with losing weight for her debut, she is prescribed diet pills by a
careless doctor that gradually drive her insane.
Director Darren
Aronofsky’s previous screen credit was the extremely low budget thriller Pi, which got him widespread critical
acclaim and the chance to create something with larger funds. His choice to make
this movie must have derived from the same passionate drive that fueled Pi and made it so riveting, even in its
cheapness. It is very evident throughout the film that he cares about it and the
effect it will have on those who see it. He places his story in reality and
films it slightly off-kilter, creating an unease in the viewer and giving the
picture a nightmarish effect. The result is one of the single most powerful movies
I have ever seen. To watch it is to see genius at work.
The entire cast is incredible, mostly because they are so
natural in their roles that we never question them. There are numerous scenes
that could have been handled with a typical Hollywood melodrama that would have
been disastrous. All the little moments of hardship and heartache are played with
a deceptive simplicity. Characters act, react, talk and move like real people,
not scripted characters. Leto’s desperate aggressiveness, Wayan’s surprising
restraint and Connelly’s brave submissiveness are all stand-outs, but Ellen
Burstyn’s performance is the highlight of not just this movie, but her entire
career. I could never sufficiently describe the potency of her acting here and
it stands as one of my all-time favorite film performances. Notice during her
monologue about the red dress that the camera drifts slightly off-center. This
is because the operator had been crying and fogged up the lens.
I will never forget the first time I watched Requiem for a Dream. I have described
the experience as being something like being kicked in the gut until you can’t
stand and then being kicked some more. Part of the impact of the film must be
attributed to Clint Mansell who wrote the electrifying score, which pulsates
throughout with a haunting persistence. The film also uses a unique style of
editing that moves as fast as an action movie and uses such devices as
split-screens, time-lapse photography and cameras actually attached to the
actors they’re pointed at to create the visual versions of getting high (in a
bad way) and going crazy. Where most movies have a total of 500 or 600
different shots, Requiem has over
2,000. There are times when the film is so unsettling, so much an affront on
the senses that we question the validity of what we’re seeing and are dismayed
to discover it’s all real.
The last twenty minutes of the movie have no rival in terms
of emotional intensity. To call this finale depressing would be both an
understatement and a misnomer. As viewers, we don’t want to see the terrors we
are shown, but recognize that there is no other alternative. The characters
have spent the entire film careening towards their own destructions and the
lasting impact of the picture mostly stems from these closing moments. Like the
real side effects of drug addiction, they are too horrible to be believed. It
is the disturbing nature of these last scenes that keep the movie out of the
hands of the people who would most benefit from it. I would say that for a
movie like this, the age at which a young person should view it depends on the
maturity level of that person. In my opinion, if they’re old enough to know
about drugs, they‘re old enough to see what effects they can have.
What makes Requiem for
a Dream a great movie isn’t just that it has a powerful message and great
acting. It has been made with such care and energy that it is fresh and urgent
today, a dozen years after its conception. I believe it is one of the few
modern movies that will prove to be timeless. The difference in reactions to
the film will depend on the individual. I have seen it exactly four times and am
always incredibly moved by it without fail. I remember one critic writing that
at the end of his screening, his hands were bleeding from how tightly he had clenched
them and he hadn’t even realized it. That is one of the more extreme ways one
can react, but I certainly can’t imagine anyone reaching the opposite extreme.
It may not always be pleasant, but nobody can say it didn’t make them care.
No comments:
Post a Comment