the anti-drug film of 2000

Rating: Null/10 (15 May 2004)

Darren Aranofsky´s Requiem for a Dream is one of the most forceful anti-drug narratives ever to be committed to celluloid. It´s a basic fairly tale, but the perfect combo of writer/director Aranofsky´s direction makes this one impossible not to watch. This is not a film for people weak of mind or soul. Aranofsky, who rocketed to fame with his first indie film, Pi (one of the strangest film I have ever seen), is not afraid to take chances, and this film represents a big one. He takes his camera and makes it his weapon: he uses fast and slow motion and he runs a lot of times a 10 second chain of quick cuts from unwrapping the drug till a character gets a high. I really think that every actor with a major role in this film is an artist in the truest sense of the word. Each of them is shown in a state of physical and mental degradation. The action is strong, and the dialoque real.
The movie starts slowly, introducing each of the characters and establishing their relationships. Everyone in this film has their own dreams. The central figure is Harry (Jared Leto), a young man who lives hand-to-mouth because nearly every cent he saves, earns or steals goes towards buying something he can inject into his veins. His best friend and business partner is Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) who shares many of Harry´s aspirations. His girlfriend is Marion (Jennifer Connelly), who, like Harry and Tyrone, is an addict. The fourth significant player is Harry´s widowed mother, Sara (Ellen Burstyn), who is as addicted to television as Harry is to drugs. The spiral of all consuming addiction is what Arasnofsky has captured with great effectiveness. This spiral ends in the 15 brilliant last minutes of the movie.
Requiem for a Dream, in my opinion the best film of 2000, is hard to watch but impossible to look away: it gets under your skin and stays there.