Requiem For A Dream

One of my favorites, I am writing this review after watching this movie for the umpteenth time. Disturbing, horrifying, wicked, sick, depressing, you name it. You can reel off most of the dark adjectives that identify with the character of this movie. This is one of the few movies which is solely a director's movie. Aronofosky comes across as an intelligent and a master creator, who puts his vision on screen with incredible punch and drama. Four lives are engulfed by drugs in different ways and each of them must gruesomely meet their fatal end. Requiem tells the story of hopes and aspirations taken over by a havoc which starts as a recreational drug use. Harry and his girlfriend Marion are a playful young couple who like to live on the edge. Rebellious and wild, initially what begins as a daily fix, gradually takes over their lives. Harry's mother is an old widow and the TV is all what she has to kill time. In order to fit in a pretty dress she must loose weight and take orange, blue and red pills which spiral her down to an old junkie. Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb delivers an excellent and shocking performance. The scene where she explains Harry, her reasons to get up in the morning is one of the most emotionally intense seen I have ever seen , good enough to melt the stone hearted. Here, Harry who thought her mother's 'fix' is a TV, turns up only to find out that in fact it is something else! The movie scores exceedingly well in technical aspects of camera work, editing and cinematography. Split screens, stop motions shots, green jittery frames - are all sheer genius. The process of drug making is conceptualized with immense ingenuity and equally well shot and edited. The entire split second montage draws the viewer, as though he is the one knocking the high! The climax is sheer power. As the ending comes close the scenes shuffle more quickly and so does the tempo of the background score. Clint Mansell's theme music has become a cult. The haunting and mind numbing violin screams effectively depict the painful cravings that the protagonists feel for their fixes. The movie blows me away every time, I watch it. I would say it requires some preparation of mind, because it is extremely depressing and not a happy ending. It is a masterpiece though!