The reason we invented celluloid

Rating: 10/10 (6 June 2001)

*Requiem* is an experience. It is a ride. It is a descent into hell itself. Your eyes do not want to leave the screen, yet they want to look away from the horror of it all. I'm still shaking, and not just because it's cold outside. If there is a theater anywhere near you showing this movie, see it at a theater. I don't think it can have quite the same impact on a small screen.
The movie follows four characters. Sara, mother of Harold, is an obsessive TV-watcher who becomes addicted to diet pills when she is told she has won a chance to be on TV. Harry, his friend Tyrone, and his girlfriend Marion all shoot heroin and snort cocaine. The simple blurb is that the movie shows how each character's addiction to drugs destroys him.
Darren Aronofsky's touch is evident. Remember those oh-so-cool quick cuts of Max popping pills that emphasized how routine the action was? Well, that technique is back, and with a vengeance. In a few seconds you get cut - drop - roll - snort - dilate, complete with sound effects. It's a wonder this didn't get nominated for sound editing; the effect is amazing. Aronofsky also has another trick up his sleeve in that in several scenes, he uses a split screen to his advantage. Even the opening credits should be noted, the way the white names appear on the black for a few seconds, and then the black eats away at them until they are devoured.
Speaking of devoured, don't be surprised if after seeing this movie, you're a tad afraid of your refrigerator.
For the first third or so, the movie is very beautiful. The relationship between Harry and Marion is portrayed effectively, lovingly, by both the actors and the director. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is the scene in which Harry and Marion lie head to head with feet pointed in opposite directions, and the camera circles slowly above them, and in their calm, drug-induced bliss, they express their love. "You make me feel human," she says.
The actors themselves, too, are beautiful. Jennifer Connelly, Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, and Marlon Wayans. You see them, how happy they are...and you watch them destroy themselves. The acting, as it must be, is excellent. Marlon Wayans actually *can* act, my friends. And Ellen Burstyn, nominated (and rightly so) for an Academy Award, has a lot to handle for her role, and she executes it with unflinching grace. Watching her onscreen, seeing her face and what it does, you wonder how she's doing it, how horrible it must be inside her head to make it so convincing.
As he did in *Pi*, Aronofsky uses music to its full potential, with a haunting score, the strings performed by the Kronos Quartet. I just saw *Yi Yi*, which uses almost no music but for the beginning and end, and I greatly appreciated that. Life has no soundtrack; it was effective. But I am once again reminded how much music can do for a film.
Words really can't describe how this movie feels.
During the horrific climactic sequence (you'll know it when it happens), my whole body had chills running through it. I felt the beginnings of tears in my eyes. I knew that if it pulled the right strings, it might get tears from me. It was just absolutely horrible to watch what these people had become. They weren't *bad* people. They all had their dreams...and all they received was a requiem. After the heartbreaking denouement ended to begin the credits, I couldn't move. I couldn't speak.
There is *no* redemption in this film. The title tells it all. This is a requiem. This is not a happy movie. At all. It won't restore your faith in humanity. It will restore your faith in film, however, and what it can do. (Why this movie wasn't nominated for more Oscars is beyond me. Technically, this movie is masterful. Editing, Directing, Sound, Score...all should have been nominated. As long as Darren Aronofsky stays true to himself and doesn't succumb to the Hollywood machine, the next *Batman* is going to kick serious butt.)
I am glad that this movie was simply about the horrors of drug addiction. If someone could make a movie this effective, this powerful, about the horrors of humanity in general, I just might have to go kill myself.