I still feel stunned

Rating: 9/10 (2 February 2001)

I left the theater two hours ago and I still feel stunned. When the film started I was struck by the unique and instantly coherent visual vocabulary. The split screens...the frenetic images. Fueled by a quirky, driving Kronos Quartet score. There was a sense of humor about the bleak relationship between Sara Goldfarb and her son. The running gag about him selling her TV for drug money. From the opening sequences and what I'd read in reviews, I felt that I was on recognizable ground. That I could watch from a safe vantage point as the story unfolded and enjoy the edginess of the plot and break away clean.
But somewhere in the midst of it, I felt myself drawn closer to the action. Sensing more and more that I somehow physically understood what was happening to Sara even though I'd never been there. And by the end, I felt sick. I felt my boundaries had dissolved. I felt a physical connection with what was happening on the screen. The sound and the image invaded me and I felt physically sick, assaulted, wasted.
I don't think I've ever felt that way in a movie. The ugliness and the horror completely engulfed my personal space. I was not safe.
I can't really recommend this movie because it was so graphically disturbing...I would not want the responsibility of sharing the experience. But if someone has the courage or strength to face it, they will be confronted by a seamless experience that wastes no time setting a stage for the viewer, but plugs directly, like electrodes, into their mind.