REQUIEM FOR A DREAM
by Alexis Tioseco
Requiem For a Dream is the best movie of 2000.
Save that.
Addiction is killer. It eats at your soul and weakens your resolve until you become numb to the notion that you've fallen into a pattern. It's ugly, brutal, unforgiving, and worst of all, self-imposed. There are no easy answers. No one-line solutions. No simple way to kick the habit. All there is the stark reality of knowing it isn't going to be over soon. Addiction can come in any form, from ones we've grown to expect like drugs or food, to ones we haven't, like power or television.
Requiem For a Dream is about addiction. It's ugly, brutal and unforgiving. It doesn't attempt to give easy answers or one-line solutions. It knows there are none. What it does is present you with the reality, in all its unflinching horror.
The story is based on a novel of the same title by Hubery Selby Jr., and was adapted for the screen by the films director, Darren Aronofsky. Coming off the heels of his 1st film, the acclaimed indie hit Pi, Aronofsky skillfully weaves through a story of four characters, an old, lonely, na�ve widowed mother, Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn, nominated for, and should have won, an Academy Award for her role), her son Harry (Jared Leto), his beautiful girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly), and his best friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans, in a completely serious role). A requiem, defined, is a mass, or funeral song, for the dead. This film plays out just as this title suggests, as a requiem for the hopes and dreams of each of the characters.
Sara is addicted to television, and sugar. She's a lonely widow, and the TV is her only company. She sits in front of it, day in and day and out, box of chocolates in tow, watching a silly game shows whos host and audience chant "Weve got a winner!", and "be excited! be be excited!" She receives a call one day, one of those crazy junk calls, saying she's going to be on television. She believes it, and this because the turning point of her still world. She devotes herself to losing weight, in an effort to fit into the red dress, the one she wore for Harrys graduation, eventually getting hooked on diet pills. "You take them and you dont wanna eat!" her friend tells her. It gets ugly. Grinding teeth, nightmarish hallucinations ugly.
Her son Harry, his girlfriend Marion and best friend Tyrone are all hooked. They feel good when theyre high, and it shows. They conjure up a get-rich quick scheme to buy drugs and sell em for profit. Simple enough? Not when you cant save enough of it to sell. They all fall, and fall hard. You feel an awkward sympathy for these characters. Theyre not terrible people. Theyre not trying to hurt anyone. They want to make each other happy, to connect with one another, but they try to do it through artificial means. By satisfying the fix instead of the need. "If ever theres a TV junkie its the old lady", Harry says before giving his mom a big screen TV. Its through actions like that that you gain an understanding of the characters, of their nature. Sarah doesnt want a TV, all she wants is for her son to visit her once in a while.
Director Aronofsky and (Filipino) Cinematographer Matthew Libatique show the repetitive nature of their addiction by showing in full screen close-ups, each of them repeating the acts of their addictions. Pounding home the idea of their routine over and over until you get sick just thinking about it. They effectively employ every trick from the vibrating cam, sped up and slow motion shots, subjective views, and even invent a few, unique interpolating split-screen shots. Aronofsky shows the paradox of artificial happiness by demonstrating how quickly they change from melancholy to bliss after feeding their addiction, then back to emptiness after the high fades all too briefly.
More than an addiction to television sugar or a drug, this film is about addiction to a dream, an illusion of an easy way to escape from the ills of reality. A belief that happiness can be obtained through the simplest of means. That is something we can all relate to. The last 15 minutes of this film is a wake-up call. A mind-numbing, gut-wrenching, cringe-causing wake-up call. Its the most intense 15 minutes in film that Ive seen my lifetime.
In an age of film where vision is butchered for the sake of "appealing to a bigger audience". Where a message is diluted because "it's not marketable". It is all too rare that a film stands directly in front of you, looks you in eye, and dares you to look away. This is that film, and it is the best film of 2000.