Soul-destroying

Rating: 2/10 (29 September 2013)

(Before everything else, I want to say that I have no problem with difficult films, and try my best to work through them and process them with more than just emotion. In other words: I tried to like this movie.)
This film does to the viewer what the drugs do to the characters. It eviscerates. It grinds down. It leaves you feeling hollow and unsatisfied. The thesis, from what I can tell, is: "Drugs are bad." And this becomes extraordinarily, horrifyingly clear during the extremely punishing final minutes of the film. But what is the viewer supposed to do afterward?
Is the point that drugs will leave you feeling the same way the film does? If so, fine. It is a masterfully constructed (but otherwise useless) public service announcement that subjects you to hell for 102 minutes in the same way a fire-and-brimstone preacher might.
If not, it is a work that delights far too much in breaking the viewer apart, using every trick it can find to beat us over the head with the depravity and brokenness of man, to no discernible end.
Having seen Black Swan, I expected a disturbing experience, but this was a far darker film than I imagined. Black Swan, at least, celebrates something (the perfect artistic work), and explores the self-destructive obsession that seems to follow perfection and genius. It is cautionary and morbidly fascinated, like Requiem, but much more measured. The penultimate scenes of this film, cutting between the destruction of the four main characters, made me wish I could turn off all sensory input-- or at least punch Aronofsky in the mouth.
This may be a naive notion, but I believe in the power of art to uplift. To challenge and empower people toward higher vision and accomplishment. Obviously not every film needs to attempt this, but I truly do not understand the point of making a work that only has the capacity to crush the soul. As a creator, why simply grind people into the ground?
If you are the kind of person that wants to "get something out of a film," you will probably be best served by steering clear of this one. It will only take from you.