Simply, one of those films that just refuse to exit the confines of your mind...

Rating: 10/10 (6 March 2008)

Shocking. Is the first of many words that come to mind when reviewing Darren Aronofsky's controversial cult follow-up film to Pi. Others include; hypnotic, audacious, bleak, bold, rapid, and brilliant. Not only is Requiem for a Dream an enigmatically masterful showcase of contemporary film-making that blares cinematic success, innovation and awe with a heavy dose of drug fuelled melodrama to spare, but it's also the best anti-drugs film ever made. Yeah, yeah, stop scowling at the back, Trainspotters.
Staggering into our cinemas some 8 years ago; groggy, rancid, looking for a fix, Requiem left wave upon wave of horror-struck spectators stumped, wide-eyed while clutching certain bodily limbs in utter disbelief. It's an exploitation film of love, loss and lunacy. Of fame, fear and failure that precariously weaves high entertainment values and culturally imperative content into an indie film of immense aesthetic stature, intrigue and unique visual style.
By mixing an operatic yet ace underground rave soundtrack with a semi- surrealist edge, the film itself is by no means easy on the ears nor eyes. In fact, it's damn difficult to watch, even harder to swallow, but emerges a triumphant piece of modern cinema that remains etched in the minds of countless critics, fans and movie-goers afar. Users or non.
Based on the equally titled seventies drug novel by Hubert Selby Jr, Requiem is powered by a quartet of compulsive Coney Islanders' and their pipe-dreams, desperations, drug addictions and gradual descents into personal hells of psychiatric admission, prostitution, prison and amputation. In other words, it examines the human consumption of illegal drugs in a way never previously attempted on screen. Through an intense use of uncanny film-making techniques including split-screens, intercuts, wipe-cuts, hip-hop montages and over three times as many individual cuts as your average length feature, Requiem is truly as much a film on drugs as it is about them.
Darren Aronofksy deftly succeeds in crafting a severe and visceral sense of how drug use and abuse degrades not only the human body, but also the mind and soul. Through a dynamic combination of cutting-edge direction and heartfelt screen performances, we're forced to sympathise with all of the four hapless characters to the bitterest of bitter ends. Some viewers may even be able to empathise (well, to an extent). Predominantly, though, the admirable film-making tactics employed by Aronofsky are what give Requiem its kick. Sure, the content is horrendous, but the visuals demand that we endure every last frame and cinematic nuance to the absolute max'. Whether we want to or not.
Over the course of a somewhat undersized body of work consisting of a mere three features, Aronofsky has emerged as one contemporary cinema's finest makers of surrealist yet intellectual psychological dramas. Clearly drawn to self-isolated and David Lynch-like character driven plots, Aronofsky's Requiem stands firm as the pinnacle of his three- pronged feature portfolio. "I wanted to make a freefall where you jump out of an airplane and about half way down you realise you forgot the parachute," recites the Brooklyn born director. "The film is the moment you hit the ground". And it is. Requiem for a Dream is visual, vicious and vital. As paranoid and intoxicating now as it was then. Quite simply, a innovative filmmaker's film whose complex theses ring so true in a global community ravaged and maimed by illegal drugs.