Requiem For A Dream

I thought trying to write about Once Upon A Time In The West was hard. That time, it was because I am so utterly taken with the film that I struggled to write anything more coherent than pure, gushing praise. With Requiem I knew I was in for a tougher time. Here's why:

I should have guessed from the title. Really, one should take the title as an obvious warning that we are going to watch the death and celebration-in-death of a dream/hope/chance/ideal/escape. Yet when I started to watch this film, I didn't pause to think "hang on, this one could get really sad", I just settled in and let it roll. I'd watched Pi already, and I have good friends who rate both Aronofsky films highly. Like Pi, Requiem entices with a killer soundtrack, solid acting, and Aronofsky's trademark disjointed cinematography. In fact, some of the key players were really made on this film (I'm thinking Connelly and Leto here) as it was a semi-indie film that got widespread acclaim. Anyway, I'd loved Pi (review to follow anon). But the word 'love' cannot come anywhere near a review of Requiem because the negative emotions that this film conjured for me still leave me feeling awkward and...depressed? hurt? fragile? Fragile is probably closest.

I've finally got around to writing this because I finally figured out what was so shocking and upsetting about the film.

It's a fairly simple set-up. As Sara (Burstyn) decides to lose weight as she is desperate to be on TV, she ends up taking uppers to fight her appetite, leaving her a wreck. Meanwhile her son Harry (Leto), his girlfriend Marion (Connelly) and friend Tyrone (Wayans) spend a summer dealing drugs and getting high. Their addictions are manageable because they are doing so well out of it. By the autumn things sour: Sara is a shred of her former self, and starting to hallucinate wildly; the police crack down on drug dealers and Harry, Tyrone and Marion find themselves strapped for cash and a hit. As the film builds to its climax, it becomes apparent that there is no way out for these people - their dreams of the summer had been exactly that. Sara is taken in to hospital and given shock therapy to battle her addiction; Harry's infected injection wound leads to his arm being amputated; Tyrone is arrested and sent to prison; Marion's increasing desperation to score has led her to prostitution. All carefully spliced together into a brutal montage of shots in the closing minutes of the film.

It's Marion's position that messed with my mind the most, and here is the key to why I was left so thoroughly pained by watching - her humiliation is before a group of suits, who mock and goad her to perform for them. By watching, the viewer is implicitly made a part of that group. It was only now that I realised why I was left with such a bitter taste in my mouth: I was a part of her degradation to score. If I'm honest, it still bothers me now.

A fantastic film, and a brilliant follow-up to Pi, as Aronofsky branches out as a director and elicits some excellent performances from his actors. But NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED.

***
2000

Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans

Dir. Darren Aronofsky

Based on the book by Hubert Selby Jr.