by Darren Aronofsky, 2000.
Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Connelly, Jared Leto, and Marlon Wayans.
Rating: 4/10, 9/10.
Movies don’t seem to affect me as strongly as they do other people. I can sit through A Clockwork Orange fairly easily, for instance, and pretty much the only films that have ever made me outright cry are the ones Lars Von Trier makes.
But Requiem For A Dream got me. When the film ended, I literally couldn’t move; I had to be helped out of my seat, and when I finally managed to get out of the theater I collapsed immediately onto a bench. That’s the kind of movie this is. Even now, months later (I’m so behind with my reviews right now), thinking about it is making me extremely uncomfortable.
The story is not especially new. It basically boils down to "addiction will lead you to a very, very bad place," repeated four times. It’s all in the specifics, and in the fascinating cinematography and direction. We get Tyrone (Wayans), who’s just trying to make it through life with his girlfriend and his addiction. We get Marion (Connelly), who would open a business to manufacture and sell her wonderful clothing designs, if only drugs didn’t keep getting in the way. We get Harry (Leto), Marion’s boyfriend, who wants to support her, and keeps looking for the standard one big score that’ll get them all in the...er...is it pink? for good. And most of all, we get Sara (Burstyn), Harry’s mother, who has three addictions of her own: television, food, and diet pills.
I think the filmmakers deliberately cast four stunningly beautiful people in these roles. We get all drooly over Wayans, Connelly, and Leto (especially him, hee hee), but then we have to watch as they go through some of the most horrible, degrading experiences imaginable. And as for Burstyn, she’s a shock from the beginning. We all know how gorgeous she is in real life, but in this film she goes from frumpy to burnt out, and all along we’re thinking, how could this have happened to you? How could this have happened to any of you?
I haven’t even talked about the big thing about this film, which is of course the completely original, innovative direction and cinematography. Through tricks of the camera, we are made to feel every last little thing the characters feel. When Sara is hungry and paranoid, well, dammit, we feel it. When Marion is feeling trapped in her situation, trapped by her addiction and her beauty, we feel it. In their brief moments of happiness, as Marion and Harry are lying together on the ground, the camera floats above them, spinning slowly and contentedly. When Sara is in her final downward spiral, everything around her is fuzzy and confused. And when the characters are high, or sped up, we feel their perfect happiness, but also the imperfection of the moment. These sequences is always filmed the same way: the camera is solidly rooted in one place. The colours and images are crystal clear. The action is immensely sped up. All of this combines to tell us that these are the only moments that matter to these people; the only moments that are really real, really right. And they pass all too quickly.
The visual mastery mixes perfectly with the intense score, written by Clint Mansell and performed by the Kronos Quartet. In fact, the score is my most complete memory of the film. For the next week I had the pounding strings going through my head constantly.
This film is not easy to watch. But it is required viewing. So sometime when you have a week or at least a couple days where you can afford to be absolutely destroyed, see it.