Simply Put This Is A Masterwork

Rating: 10/10 (27 October 2009)

I vaguely heard a few years ago that the director of PI followed it up by making a film based on a novel featuring drug addicts called REQUIEM FOR A DREAM . It got a couple of good reviews but I couldn't help noticing it took another six years for Darren Aronofsky to make another movie entitled THE FOUNTAIN which was one of the worst pieces of pretentious nonsense I ever watched . Still however the cult of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM grew and grew over the years . It is highly rated amongst the prolific voters on this website and has received almost aggressive praise from some quarters . And yet I had serious doubts to its worth as it was ignored by most award ceremonies and only received a very limited release in cinemas . Certainly I had no real intention of watching it until it appeared on a Sky movie channel . How good was it ? Let me put it like this - 72 hours after seeing it I still can't get it out of my mind
!!!! MILD SPOILERS !!!!!
Aronofsky has made an entirely expressionist film . He expresses in visual form what the characters are feeling . This goes all the way back to almost a hundred years ago to a movement in Germany and since then we see influences in productions as diverse as the BBC serial of QUATERMASS 2 to Harvey Keitel's drunken sequence in MEAN STREETS but I can't think of anything where this technique is better suited than here where the mental as well as the physical disintegration of the characters take place . The technique may put off a potential audience but that's the point , the characters are going through a living nightmare that they will never recover fully from and Aronofsky conveys their misery totally
The director also brings a subtle in joke of semiotics . In THE GODFATHER before someone is killed the colour orange is prominent . In CHILDREN OF MEN someone is peeling an orange before they're killed . It's a subliminal code used in films but one that is familiar to pretentious film students and movie geeks . When the characters enter a drugs den the audience are shown a close up of an orange being peeled and then all hell breaks loose . Expressionism and semiotics in the same movie ? Not necessarily the work of a genius , nor is it the mark of a genius for noticing this but should still be appreciated
One criticism the film has is that it's rabid anti drugs propaganda . Such criticism seems to be missing the point since Sara is addicted to legally prescribed drugs - amphetamine based diet pills and barbiuates . It's not a subtle film but does make subtle points that the amphetamine has almost certainly caused Sara to become schizophrenic . Likewise much of the drug taking and destruction is fuelled entirely by self delusion such as Harry and Marion wanting to open a store funded by the money they made dealing drugs . One criticism that is possibly valid is that there's medical facts that are ignored such as electro convulsive therapy being used on a conscious patient or how limbs are amputated but Aronofsky has rightly ignored these facts in order to make a more shocking film
Make no mistake that this is a truly shocking film . Compared to this TRAINSPOTTING is a cartoon for children and no other film has ever portrayed the misery and danger of drugs so potently . Nine years after its limited release the soundtrack by Clint Mansell has become legend and rightly so . However REQUIEM FOR A DREAM itself deserves to become legendary amongst a mainstream audience . It is quite simply a masterwork and a film that whilst I'm in no hurry to see again due to its harrowing content is a film I will never forget