Best watched in your underwear, with a tall glass of nyquil in hand, if ever there was a movie more deserving of the word brilliant I have not seen it. Requiem For A Dream is perhaps the most undeniably plauseble movie I've ever seen. The imagery is stark and sureal, the plot original, yet tragically common. The appealing darkness is contrasted heavily by the remaining elements of love and friendship, accented unmistakably by greed, lust, passion, and most tragically of all - addiction.
The opening of the film starts in which one of the leading characters battles with adiction, or more specifically with his mothers television set, as he attempts to borrow it so he can pawn it for the cash to get a quick fix and sell some of it later. The feeling of helplessness surrounds us then and there as his mother locks herself in her room, appearently afraid of her son. The next scene just about made me fall out of my chair laughing - I'd never seen anyone take a TV and TV cart for a walk before.
Shooting through the next few scenes at the characters wine and dine their bodies with chemical enhancement the two lovers, Harry and his girlfriend Marrion, twist their relationship for the worse when their friend narrowly escapes death in a drug meeting turned shoot out. With most of their stash gone to bail him out of holding they must now use alternate methods to retain their dreams of living on easy street selling drugs.
With her son making the big bucks in the "distributing buisness" Harry's mother battles with an addiction all her own, and a rabid refridgerator, when she receives a call from a TV game show telling her that she would be on TV soon. Digging out her favorite old frock she notics shes twice the woman she used to be. When the grapefruit defeats hear, she resorts to dietary supliment pills - which happens to be among the packets of death her son has baught from villians not at all unlike himself peddling on the streets.
Slowly the lives of each story line begin to distort and deteriorate, and the many classic warning signs begin to manifest heavily. When there are no drugs to be found, Harry and his friend go on a little road trip, and mom goes for a walk. The revelation of any more than that would deprive you of the movies true brilliance, suffice it to say the final act is sickeningly real, and tragically common.
The final element that seals the entire work together is the soundtrack. Abstract and inviting, the bitter sound of the main theme tracts its way through your ears, like an awl being scratched into a beautifully laquered cherry wood coffee table, passing through your reflection. The music invites the listening, challanges the listener. Perhaps somewhere between The Gline and Trent Reznor, several flashes of post apocolyptic scenerey arent' at all unlikely to pass into view. The sound track is just as confusing and deadened as the film itself.
Is the movie about drugs? Addiction? Love, Friendship, Loyalty? Yes indeed perhaps, but trying to flesh out a single one of these elements in the dark set eyes of this movie is perhaps the movies greatest challenge to it's audiance. With masterful story telling, impecable casting, and immaculate cinemaphotography the intentional disorientation imposed leaves you feeling angry and upset as if you yourself were any or all of the characters, as this movie in it's presentation and medium grapples with your mind and drags you through the epxeriance through the first person window, through the very eyes of an addict. If there was a work of art ever capable of standing on its own, I think perhaps, that this is it.
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The opening of the film starts in which one of the leading characters battles with adiction, or more specifically with his mothers television set, as he attempts to borrow it so he can pawn it for the cash to get a quick fix and sell some of it later. The feeling of helplessness surrounds us then and there as his mother locks herself in her room, appearently afraid of her son. The next scene just about made me fall out of my chair laughing - I'd never seen anyone take a TV and TV cart for a walk before.
Shooting through the next few scenes at the characters wine and dine their bodies with chemical enhancement the two lovers, Harry and his girlfriend Marrion, twist their relationship for the worse when their friend narrowly escapes death in a drug meeting turned shoot out. With most of their stash gone to bail him out of holding they must now use alternate methods to retain their dreams of living on easy street selling drugs.
With her son making the big bucks in the "distributing buisness" Harry's mother battles with an addiction all her own, and a rabid refridgerator, when she receives a call from a TV game show telling her that she would be on TV soon. Digging out her favorite old frock she notics shes twice the woman she used to be. When the grapefruit defeats hear, she resorts to dietary supliment pills - which happens to be among the packets of death her son has baught from villians not at all unlike himself peddling on the streets.
Slowly the lives of each story line begin to distort and deteriorate, and the many classic warning signs begin to manifest heavily. When there are no drugs to be found, Harry and his friend go on a little road trip, and mom goes for a walk. The revelation of any more than that would deprive you of the movies true brilliance, suffice it to say the final act is sickeningly real, and tragically common.
The final element that seals the entire work together is the soundtrack. Abstract and inviting, the bitter sound of the main theme tracts its way through your ears, like an awl being scratched into a beautifully laquered cherry wood coffee table, passing through your reflection. The music invites the listening, challanges the listener. Perhaps somewhere between The Gline and Trent Reznor, several flashes of post apocolyptic scenerey arent' at all unlikely to pass into view. The sound track is just as confusing and deadened as the film itself.
Is the movie about drugs? Addiction? Love, Friendship, Loyalty? Yes indeed perhaps, but trying to flesh out a single one of these elements in the dark set eyes of this movie is perhaps the movies greatest challenge to it's audiance. With masterful story telling, impecable casting, and immaculate cinemaphotography the intentional disorientation imposed leaves you feeling angry and upset as if you yourself were any or all of the characters, as this movie in it's presentation and medium grapples with your mind and drags you through the epxeriance through the first person window, through the very eyes of an addict. If there was a work of art ever capable of standing on its own, I think perhaps, that this is it.
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posted by Renge at 12/06/2002 11:24:00 PM
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