Requiem For A Dream

     This has to be one of the best movies ever made. I mean, I will only make these types of pages for movies that are new, and great. This movie takes you by the throat and shakes you around. See this for a great movie going experience. Requiem For a Dream is a dark, vicious movie about addiction to drugs of all types. It talks about heroin, marijuana (a little), and uppers, especially in the form of diet pills. The main character is Harry, played by Jared Leto. His mother, Sarah, is played by Ellen Burstyn. His girlfriend, Marion, is Jennifer Connely. And his friend Tyrone is Marlon Wayans.

        The movie is about addiction, and has an anti-drug message. This is what I would call responsible film-making. Unlike Trainspotting, this one shows the worst aspects of being an addict. Yes, Trainspotting was, in a way, an anti-drug movie, and it showed some bad aspects, but it was nowhere near as visceral as this movie was. Requiem for a Dream will be called America's Trainspotting. Requiem is definately the superior in many ways, although Trainspotting is a great movie itself. Requiem is definately not for the easily upset, the squeamish, or the offended. The movie, however, should be up for a best picture nominee,or at least a best director nominee, if I ruled the world.

        Harry is an addict who has finally got the oppurtunity to make it big for money in the drug retail business with his friend Tyrone. His girlfriend is also an addict. His mother is a television addict. She recieves a call, and, consequently, sends in a reply to be on a television show. However, she has to look her best, and so is placed on diet pills. All of this starts in the summer (The first of the three seasons). During fall and winter, everything for everybody starts falling apart, and Winter is the gruesome finale. The movie features hallucinations, explicit sex, violence, and drug use, in not-so-friendly visions. The movie is also very disturbing, even to those who think that they are jaded, including me.

       A side note: While I feel obligated to see the movie again because of how much there is, I really don't want too, yet I do. It is that vicious of a movie. Aronofsky describes the movie as jumping out of a plane without a parachute that ends three minutes too late.

   If you have not seen the movie, do not read past this point. I repeat, you will only be spoiling it for yourself if you do. I went in, not knowing anything except that it was about drugs, and Leto had lost 1/5 of his weight for the roll. And that it was the second feature from the director of Pi.

      The movie starts on an up-note. Summer is when everything is going fine. Harry steals a cheap television, and his mother buys it back. It has been a game that they have played for years now. He finds out about selling, and becomes a dealer. Sarah finds about her television appearence, and first tries a self-control diet. When she is on the diet, her stomach wants to eat like she used to, and she has hallucinations about the refigerator coming alive and tempting her. But, having almost no self-control, she goes to a doctor to get pills. She does, and becomes hooked on the pills. But, she is losing weight, so she is happy and oblivious. She is hooked on uppers for the daytime and downers for the nighttime. The only scene where Harry has any real fear is when he visits his mother after making it big, and finds that she is now on uppers for a diet. He knows that it will lead to somewhere bad, but Sarah doesn't listen.

       The movie then becomes Fall. Fall is the falling apart of everything. The pills Sarah is taking start losing their effect, and her refirgerator starts coming alive again, only much more scary this time. She starts taking more than one pill at a time, and we see her start to fall apart. In the meantime, she still hasn't been contacted to appear on television again. Meanwhile, on the streets, heroin has become a rarity and is a very sought-after commodity. Soon Harry and Marion run out of money, and heroin, which causes her to whore herself for money, but they still can't find a buyer.

      The last segment is Winter. It is in this section when Harry leaves Marion to go to Florida for Heroin. His injection point also becomes infected, yet he doesn't care. It starts looking really vicious. Harry and Tyrone leave together, and they get a hit. Harry takes it in the infected spot, and ends up having to go to the hospital. There, he loses his arm to aputation, and Tyrone gets arrested. He ends up having to work. Meanwhile, Marion whores herself to a dealer for heroin, and doesn't need a middleman. She then gets stuck in an orgy, where she loses her self, and her pride. She is degraded so far that she can't come out. Finally, Sarah starts looking really ugly from her addictions. She then gets it in her mind to go to the television station to see when she will be on. However, she seems like a crazy homeless woman in New York, and is taken to a hospital. They can't treat her medically, and so need to use EST (Electro-shock therapy. We finally see her withering away. Her friends visit and we see them crying. Jared has a dream about finding Marion, but then she is gone. And Sarah still has her fantasy, and dies a la Titanic, where she gets on the television show with Harry.

        Anybody who saw Aronofsky's first movie "Pi," saw what kind of paranoia and visceral movie he made on a minimum budget. It cost less than $1 mil, I think. Now, he has a much higher budget, and makes a much more extreme movie. The movie is full of the repetitiveness that fills everyday life, especially the everyday life of drug addicts. And, you can tell the point where Sarah becomes an addict. Every usage of drugs is implied by a flash-cut montage of preparing the drugs, melting it, filling the needle, the cells changing color, and the pupils dialating. Sarahs don't have the same pattern, but they feature the same slam-bang techniques (eventually) that tie in all of the addicts. This shows the monotony or repetitiveness of the lifestyle. The movie uses many different techniques to slam you home. It featues fixed cameras on all of the four characters to show their loss of self, and disorientation. This technique has been featured in many other movies as well. Also, the movie has a damn great soundtrack by Clint Mansell and the Kronos Quartet. All of this adds to an extremely emotional movie, that may be considered manipulative, but only if you feel sympathy for all of the characters.

        The story that will make everybody feel sad is Sarah's. She is the nicest of old ladies, and she gets hooked on diet pills to the point of insanity. She isn't used to a lifestyle of extremes, and so loses herself in that way. Watching her fall to pieces is just heartbreaking, and it is the only reason that I don't want to see the movie again. However, I would have to say that it seemed like it came by in a realistic sense. So, I would say watch it.

          My reaction to the movie. Deeply disturbing. Sarah's story is the most disturbing thing I have seen on celluloid. That is saying alot considering that I have seen 15-20 percent of the cult movies in "Videohound's cult flicks and trash picks." The camera work was just the best stuff that I have seen. The camera worked to prove a point, which is lately never used. We have meaning in just the sole images. The movie itself is supurbly scripted, and works well in getting up your hopes for the whole crew, then dashing them down. We see the three seasons work in their own feeling.

          I have seen many druggie movies. I even have a drug movie page, and this has to be my favorite drug movie because of its respnsibility and meaning. Trainspotting had some, but not much responsibility. The book had more, iin that you saw more of the bad life, and more of people's reactions. It didn't seem as fun in the book at times. Also, this movie makes it seem like fun at first, but then makes it seem like torture, which Trainspotting never did. Even the carpet sequence didn't work for the suffering feeling. Sure it made the smothering feeling a little, and coming down seemed harsh, but overall if you stayed on, you were living good. Bright Lights, Big City (one of the few cocaine movies out there) had more responsibility that trainspotting in that it showed the decay of the mans life. But, this one just affected me, and probably the whole audience more than either of these movies. It seemed real, and normal at first, then moved into harsh. And, there was meaning in the whole thing. Check this one out.