Disgusting, Deviant, Broken - one experience only

Rating: 9/10 (13 April 2006)

Attraction - in Requiem for a Dream - is dark, dirty and deviant. What appeal once existed only between people is now marketed for furniture, TV shows, and drugs.
Take three beautiful people and a middle-aged divorcée. Wallow them in loneliness, add the well-meaning spice of naivety, and the double-edged dagger of drugs. Season with sharp tears of tragedy, swallow and wait 102 minutes, and you'll excrete this diamond.
Let me reaffirm what has been so well said already. This film has a feel, of terminable tragedy, of disconcerting danger, of exploited excitement. Would you agree that a film with 'feel' risks lacking a coherent narrative, a story that relies instead upon instinct to draw you the conclusions? If so, you'll appreciate how this film plots the downfall of four people unwittingly destroyed by the mental exacerbation of drugs.
Because what are drugs but the opening of doors to the mind? And for the loneliness and disenfranchised in society, there are some doors that contain instincts that have no place in society. In the words of Tom Leah of Real Writing,
"Legalising heroin would be great for young professionals wanting a weekend lift. Legalising heroin would tear sink estates apart from within" (2003.)