A Repressive Redemptive Review

Rating: Null/10 (29 September 2006)

So I heard the Machinist was recommended, so I saw it. It stars Christian Bail. Now hold on a second, Christian Bail has lost weight for this role. Christian Bail has lost a lot of weight for this role. Christian Bail has lost so much weight for this role that I had a hard time believing there wasn't CGI involved. I know there was some degree of make-up artistry involved but come-on man! This is one of those movies that requires research in watching. It's not as slow as say memento, but not as action packed as fight club. There is however, some degree of gore involved, and things are dingy/dirty/scummy. Great cinematography, well, color-matching I suppose. It's one of those movies that requires more than one viewing, I would say if you're not an intellectual movie buff, you won't go for it. That's all I can say without giving it away, so...
SPOILERS AHEAD!!! For those of you who have seen it, here are my views for discussion. The character of Trevor Reznik played by Christian, has run over a little boy, I have only seen the movie once, but plan to watch it again. Anyway, at the end this is revealed. There are many hints that allude to this actual event, lighter popping out of car, him going to the intersection or pulling out into it, Aeriel shot pans downward of the stoplight. Fine.
Trevor hasn't slept in a year he says, before we cover anything, let me point out that when you don't sleep, your body dreams anyway. It's a proved fact, learned it in psychology. Dreaming is something your body needs to do.
There are a number of these so-called hallucinations in Trevor's so-called life, but before we tackle those, there are two interpretations: The one I just mentioned, or Trevor is actually dead, supposedly dying after the hit and run by crashing into a truck in a tunnel. A scene that is shown in the movie but he actually avoids the truck when tailing the red car. The police also tell him he reported his red car stolen and/or it was totaled. So you got that going for ya.
Anyway, there are a number of scenes that are either hallucinations, or Trevor's own personal limbo between heaven and hell. If he's not dead then he's fighting between redemption and repression of a sinful mistake which could lead to hell.
Before we explain that further, lets go to Ivan. Ivan is a character that Trevor sees. Ivan says he works with Trevor but no-one else can see Ivan but Trevor. Ivan represents Trevor's guilt and repression of the memories of the accident(s). Ivan is almost a super-persona of Trevor as he looks similar to him, appears in a picture in which is really a picture of Trevor, or where he should be in the picture. He looks like Trevor but is more overweight. He eats, as we can see in the scene where Trevor spies him through the machine before the machine accident. Which causes an almost replay of things as another accident occurs as a result of Ivan (his guilt) distracting him. Presumably, Ivan's shadow is seen coming down one of the sewer tunnels which mimics a heaven/hell redemption/repression symbolism. He doesn't want to face his guilt. Ivan drives Trevor's car, the car he had the accident with.
The waitress. She's the mother of the boy Trevor hit. He sees her at the airport, but as we learn toward the end of the film, she doesn't even work there. We see a camera-shot in the first airport scene. There is a suttle filter over the camera, a strange glowy grainy texture of him in front of his cup of coffee that he's not drinking. We later learn that's all he does at the airport, I suppose this is a reality camera-shot hint.
He talks to the waitress and she's very friendly with him. You almost think she's flirting with him, and he's flirting with her. Using every line in the book in a very friendly way. She talks about how he eats there but you never see him eating. She even invites him to come along to hang out with her and her son at an amusement park. All this is stuff he wishes he could do to reconcile the situation with the mother and the kid. I've read on the IMDb that the book featured in the film, "The Idiot," has something to do with this, but a bit of a reach in some degree.
This review is getting too long, and a second viewing is required by me. Obviously I've left stuff out, but not to cover everything for you.
Redemption.