.....haunting the viewer long after the final fade.

Rating: 7/10 (14 December 2000)

(I originally wrote this review for a journalism class. It's my first film review, and i hope to write many more in the future.)
I have a theory that the longer it takes me to utter a word at the close of a film, the harder it has hit me. After walking away from Requiem for a Dream, it took me forever to utter even a sigh. I felt as if I had just watched a car accident, and I could remember every gruesome detail.
Requiem for a Dream is terrible, haunting film; the kind of film that's dark images that might chase me into nightmares. The film is a nightmare. When I say this I am not speaking from a critical standpoint and this is not a `horror' movie in regular context. However, this piece, about the horrors of drug addiction, is not for the faint of heart. The film was critically a masterpiece, perhaps the best I have seen this year.
Requiem was written and directed by Darren Arnofsky, better known for another dark film about life, Pi (1998). Requiem revolves around a young dreamer named Harry Goldfarb, (Jared Leto of My So Called Life, Fight Club) and his widowed mother, Sarah (Ellen Burstyn of The Yards, Deceiver). The film also features Marlon Wayans (of Scary Movie, In Living Color on television), and Jennifer Connelly (of Dark City, Labyrinth).
This isn't the average, run of the mill `Drugs are Bad' stereotypical film, despite the fact it was Arnofsky's mission to create a film that dutifully rendered the theme of the book it was loosely based on, Hubert Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn, A book about the ills of drug addiction. Instead, the extraordinary cinematic technique of Arnofsky makes it hard to look away. He uses sped up sequences, split screen shooting, and various camera angles as a few `brushes' to illustrate the film's basic storyline.
Harry Goldfarb (Leto) and his best friend Tyrone (Wayans) have big plans. By getting hold of a fine score of Heroin they are able to cut it themselves and sell it on the streets. With Harry's end of the profit he wants to assist his girlfriend, Marion (Connelly) in making her clothing boutique a dream come true. Somewhere along the line major complications arise, the three frequent the drug more often, and the three are thrown into a wild mix of various trouble with drugs, violence, and the police.
Meanwhile Harry's mother, Sarah, (Burstyn) has settled into a painful and lonely routine of cooking and cleaning. After a phone call from a television game show scout, Sarah wants to diet and look her best. She has even picked out her best dress to wear on television. When her diet seems certain to fail she enlists the help of a doctor. Without so much as a care he prescribes her pills in the form of speed. At first these pills work, yet she slowly becomes addicted, abusing the medication. As time drags on she eventually loses track of herself and reality.
Requiem is a shocking look into the world of addiction and denial. The film painstakingly focuses on a mere heartbeat of the lives of Harry, his mother, Tyrone, and Marion. It glorifies and downplays their personal day to day struggles, their fears and hopes, and the eventual destruction of everything around them through their respective addictions.
Arnofsky and his cinematographer Matthew Libatique have put the film together is such a manner that time races by when it's characters are on their drugs, yet it seems to drag when they're not. The feeling that the characters believe that life between highs is dull, and they are waiting for the next hit becomes hauntingly evident. In addition the scenes of drug induced highs are bright and busy, while those without are seemingly drab and clouded. One thing that got to me was how dimly lit each of the character's apartments were how little sun came in, the emptiness, and openness of each. In one scene Harry is walking out a pier in the beautiful summer sunshine to Marion, who is waiting patiently in a red dress. I found it interesting since in one of Connelly's latest films, Dark City, she is featured in a similar sequence. It is also interesting to note that Ajay Naidu, Sean Gulette, and Samia Shaoib, who appear in small roles, were also in Arnofsky's film, Pi.
One of the most influential techniques in this tale is the music. Clint Mansell (Who worked on Pi as well) employed The Kronos Quartet to perform every song on the soundtrack, such as aptly titled pieces `Ghosts of Things to Come' and `The Beginning of the End.' Each piece is as haunting and nervous as the images on screen, and the music is impossible to ignore as a reminder of the tension and collapse. It is equally as powerful as the film in haunting the viewer long after the final fade.