Picture the scene - a man in his late twenties arrives in New York after a trans-Atlantic flight from London, having had almost no sleep whatsoever and knowing that he has to find some way of getting some energy back before going to a huge party that he has to attend that evening. So what does he decide to do? He decides to go and see a movie! He has a choice - "Bedazzled" or "Requiem for a Dream". Which does he choose? Ah, let me guess...
Let's go over his reasoning for a moment - he remembers Darren Aronofsky's first film very well - the fascinating and visceral "Pi". It was gripping, punchy, occasionally slightly funny, but also capable of being extraordinarily savage. This seems to be a good precedent for a film. Also the title and the picture on the poster don't make the film seem like too hard work - in fact the title sounds almost irritatingly twee, like Steel Magnolias or something.
On the other hand, Liz Hurley and Brendan Frazer... Oh it's a tough one all right...
So the man in his late twenties buys his microwave pizza and an industrial vat of cola and having popped to the loo and checked out the novelty temporary tattoos, finally manages to make his way to his seat. He's thrilled and expectant and excited about seeing a film that his friends in England won't see for ages. And then the movie begins...
THE DREAM:
The movie is a film about a fairly small group of people.
There's Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn), who's been left alone by her son (drug addiction and general weirdness) and her husband (dropped dead). She spends the day watching television quiz shows about self-empowerment until a letter turns up one day saying that she's been selected to be on a quiz show. She gets very excited and decides this is the perfect opportunity to lose weight so that she can fit into her special red dress. After a brief failed diet, she decides to try diet pills. It all seems very easy.
There's her son Harry Goldfarb (Jared Leto), who has managed to get himself off heroin, and earning a large amount of money (quite how is another matter), with which he decides to apologise to his mother for his behaviour in the past by buying her a big screen television. He's planning to make a huge score by selling drugs. It all seems very easy.
There's his girlfriend Marion Silver (Jennifer Connelly), who is the daughter of a rich father, who has run away for a while to set herself up as a fashion designer. She and Harry are very happy together, and they decide to use the money from his big score to set up her business.
And then there's their friend Tyrone, who's involved in the drug culture, but very sensible, decent and just trying to make a living. He's really into Harry and Marion's dreams.
But then of course things start to go slowly wrong. Sara's pills are making her nervy, too nervy and slowly but surely she starts to go insane. Harry gets involved in gang wars and addiction and begins to lose his money - and there's something on his arm that doesn't look right. Marion gets more and more heavily addicted and desperate. Tyrone finds himself in the centre of the gang wars with no one to turn to.
REQUIEM FOR THE DREAM:
The film (finally) ends, and our hero, the poor Englishman in New York stumbles out of the cinema having been systematically subjected to horror, subjection and cinematic abuse for a tiny 100 minutes. But it didn't seem like 100 minutes. It seemed like twice that.
"Requiem for a Dream" is utterly cruel, totally remorseless and possibly the most savage depiction of life that I have ever seen. The characters have no hope - you can see the death of their dreams a mile off, but never in your wildest dreams would you expect the extent of their subjection and degradation.
This is a film that drives its leading lady mad, slowly but surely makes her scared of the fridge, unbearably thin and edgy, and finally insane, refusing to eat, force-fed through a tube, given electro-shock therapy, shaven and left in a home. And you see it all. Every last detail.
This is a film that drives its leading man to the brink of death through drug abuse, until the infection on his arm spirals out of control and grows and grows - an infection that isn't even treated in prison. An infection that results in an arm reduced to a stump.
This is a film that drives its young female character to any lengths to get drugs, from sleeping with friends of her fathers, to final almost bestial displays of sex with full-on graphic depictions of huge lubricated sex toys and slapping body parts, watched by a shouting ring of exploitative leering men.
This is a film in which there is no escape from any character and where the plot is exacted remorselessly, like those adverts for Holocaust Exhibitions, where you feel like the whole thing has been automated and in which everyone is a victim waiting to happen rather than a person. There is NO scope for humanity in this film and EVERY trace is systematically, inexorably, erased from the characters as the film proceeds. They are left completely broken. Robots, infants, helpless.
The performances are uniformly excellent, but how they survived the process of making the film is completely beyond me. The direction is stunning - it uses short cuts of ultra-close up action repeated over and over again to give a sense of the routine, mechanised quality of their lives, and simulates the effects of the drugs and the encroaching madness through terrifying camera effects. The whole film has an appalling hallucinogenic quality to it. The script is well written and never seems trite and never seems hackneyed, but I don't understand how anyone could have written it and remained sane.
Go and see it if you must. And some of you will feel that you must. It is ... astonishing, brilliant, incredibly. But you will want to leave within thirty minutes, and if you don't leave then you will start to consider chewing your arm off or possibly stabbing yourself in the leg with a fork. Both of these would be welcome distractions from having to watch the film.
Our Englishman left the cinema in a daze, completely unable to form a coherent sentence, every cheerful thought in his head erased. Totally crushed. If you think you need that in your week, then ENJOY!
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