a cinematic take on the whole drug vs. love thesis

Rating: Null/10 (22 September 2002)

There's something about this movie that defies you to refrain from declaring whether you "like" it or not. And I'm not sure if I can put my finger on why. Is it that the effort to capture everything (and I do mean everything) on film is a kind of recipe for cinematic autodestruction? Or is it that the film was successful in delivering its "goods", and that goal has nothing, but nothing, to do with "liking" or "enjoying" the product? Or is it something else?
Anyway, I *will* say that the film delivers an interesting thesis, and it IMHO is this: That when you take all the drugs away from life, what you have left is love. Corollary: Everything that masks love is, by definition, a drug. I can't say whether this is a particularly groundbreaking thesis or not. I figure there's a very good chance it's been dealt with--perhaps even more effectively--by any number of prior cinematic efforts to deal with the drug issue [write me and let me know! -ed]. But this film certainly throws its hat squarely into that ring.
I'm sort of reminded of the quintessential Vietnam movie as a kind of holy grail of filmmaking in the U.S. That particular pursuit has come to strike me as a kind of obsession, with a feeling of each new entrant being yet-another headlong rush 180 degrees in the wrong direction (away from the probity necessary to healing). The difference in this genre of movie (e.g., "Requiem", "Jesus' Son", et.al.) is that the pursuit seems more focused and honest, more like the pursuit of insight and true healing. I wonder if "Requiem" might be a kind of belated "Apocalypse Now" of the drug wars. To the extent that there's any basis for such an analogy, "Requiem" bears a look.
AFTERNOTE: I was about to submit this review with no other comments. Think about it: Not a word about the acting, editing, script...nothing! I would like you to take that as a positive comment; the acting, scripting, editing, etc. were fine, to the point of not needing or naturally eliciting comment. It's like Stravinsky said when someone asked if the attraction of Beethoven was in his voice-leading: (paraphrase) "Well, that's an ironic thing about voice-leading. When it's absolutely perfect, it disappears as an attribute of the musical product. The best voice leading defies being noticed." I feel that technically this film defies this kind of commentary. But please don't take this to be a commentary upon my fitness to make such pronouncements! I'm not really all that versed in these niceties of filmmaking!