Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Directed by: Darren Aronofsky | 102 minutes | drama, crime | Actors: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, Christopher McDonald, Louise Lasser, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Janet Sarno, Suzanne Shephard, Joanne Gordon, Charlotte Aronofsky, Mark Margolis, Michael Kaycheck, Jack O’Connell, Chas Mastin

Anyone who has seen a single episode of the TV series “Lost” will be aware of the paranoid atmosphere director Darren Aronofsky creates. In “Lost” he uses that paranoia a lot less explicitly than in his two successful feature films: the stylish ‘Pi’ (1998) and the intense ‘Requiem for a Dream’ (2000). Characteristic of these films is the spectacular editing and the gloomy and rousing music of Clint Mansell, performed by the Kronos Quartet on ‘Requiem for a Dream’.

In ‘Requiem for a Dream’ Aronofsky has pulled open the complete box of tricks: split screen, accelerated images, slowed down images, jump-cuts, repetitions (again that pupil that gets bigger and again and again the slimming pills that Sara swallows in the picture), alternating use of color and wide-angle lenses, nothing is too crazy for him. While 600 to 700 cuts are sufficient for the average film, in ‘Requiem for a Dream’ 2000 cuts are made. With all these resources, Aronofsky manages to create an ultimate alienating effect, which comes to a climax in the scene where poor starving Sara Goldfarb hallucinates that the entire TV show has entered her room. Feed me Sara, feed me Sara, is called, and you feel like you are watching a terrible nightmare. You have that for the entire second part of the film, by the way, when things get horribly out of hand for all the characters and all their dreams seem further away than ever. As the end approaches, the film is almost impossible to watch, the misery is so overwhelming and the music and editing are so terrifying. But therein lies Aronofsky’s strength: while he shows you the most horrific thing you’ve ever seen, he also makes it so fascinating that you have to watch it.

The only problem with ‘Requiem for a Dream’ is that it tries to give all four main characters a dream and a background. Because Sara Goldfarb’s story is portrayed so intensely and Ellen Burstyn portrays her role so penetratingly, the other storylines are insignificant. The other actors do their best and the story of Harry and Marion is also very interesting, but especially the story of Tyrone (Marlon Wayan) comes across as unnecessary. The so-called excuse-negro effect. Ultimately, what happens to Tyrone is a lot less intense than what happens to the other characters and his background as a happy little boy on mom’s lap seems a bit forced. But this is only a minor false note within an overwhelming work.

‘Requiem for a Dream’ shows how destructive addiction can be, without being pedantic for a moment. The film is both sad and disgusting and the music plays to that perfectly. ‘Requiem for a Dream’ is impressive, not the kind of movie that you just put aside, but the kind of movie that you never let go. A terrible film, and undoubtedly one of the best ever made.