Misunderstood

Rating: 10/10 (26 December 2008)

Requiem for a dream is hands down one of my favorite movies. All of my friends who have seen the clip seem to think otherwise, perhaps because they look at the movie as one that is trying to convey the dangers of drugs, which yes it is but the movie has such a deeper underlying meaning that so many seem not understand.
America is the land of oppourtunity, the place where dreams are made and happiness if fulfilled. Aronofsky uses his masterpiece film to show that the ADDICTION TO HOPE CAN BE JUST AS DANGEROUS AS THE ADDICTION TO DRUGS. the meaning of requiem is a a song or hymn of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person or in this case it is the death of their dreams. They all have hopes of dreams that become evident in the beginning of the movie, Sara wants to fit into the red dress, harry and tyrone want to get a pound of pure heroin and Marian and harry want to get enough money to open up a shop and be able to focus on their future with each other. As their drug habits spiral out of control so do their dreams, everything that starts outs so promising soon comes to an end.
One thing that he uses to foreshadow their dreams is the use of the seasons. Summer is a time of happiness, relaxation and promise. The movie starts out in the summer and that is when everything seems so promising and their drug habits seem to be some what under control. Just as everything is at full bloom in the summer so are their dreams of greatness. At first everything seems to be going great, Sara is feeling the best she has in a while and losing the weight, harry is making a fortune by selling the heroin, it seems as though harry and Marian are going to be able to open their shop and their relationship for the future is promising. the scenes before the fall shows the beginning of their demise. In the cab it shows Harry's greater reliance of heroin, Sara's spped pills are turning on her, aren't affecting her as much and she starts hallucaiating, tyrone gets arrested and they have to spend half their money on his bail and worst yet all their connections for heroin are being killed. they fall to desperate measures to keep hope for their once so promising dreams. Marian and Harry's relationship begins to dwindle has money and their dreams begins to crinkle and they start fighting and they all start becoming more depended on the drugs just as does their hope for their dream. By winter time it is evident that they are all doomed and that they are all so wrapped up in their addiction for both hope and drugs that there is no escape. Sara becomes so delirious that she has to be sent into the hospital, Marian realizes the only way to keep up with her addiction is to become a prostitute and in a final desperate act of hope harry and tyrone take a trip to Florida to get a heroin. In the final scenes it shows they have no chance of scoring heroin when things spiral out of control in the grocery store shutting off all hope of their dream. their hope and dreams take over their life so much that they are willing to travel all the way to Florida to get the heroin just as their drug addiction does. Harrys drug addiction becomes so bad that he has to get his arm amputated, tyrone ends up back in jail and in the final scene of dialouge it shows how harry and marians relationship is done because their addictions have altered their lives so much that there is no chance of change.