Requiem for a Dream
Director: Darren Aronofsky
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Requiem for a Dream marks another masterpiece by director Darren Aronofsky, who gave us the beautifully haunting film Pi. Based on the novel by Hubert Selby, Jr., Requiem is the story of four Brooklyn natives and their drug-induced utopias. Starring Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, and Marlon Wayans, this movie is as disturbing and haunting as it is beautiful and seductive.

Much like the Ark of the Covenant, it is beautiful...but it will fuck you up. I was turned onto this movie because I heard it described as "beautifully disturbing", "hauntingly beautiful" and other, very similar phrases. Indeed, that it a big drawing point for this film - the filmgoer that Requiem appeals to is the kind that wants to take a walk on the darker side of human nature and emotion.

Greed, love, pleasure, guilt, obsession, status, all these are driving forces for the characters. In between heroin hazes, Leto and Wayans dream of life on easy street, dealing like big men. Leto's girlfriend, Connelly, has her lofty dreams as well, made flesh with promises by Leto and his grand scheme. Leto's mother, Burstyn, is a lonely woman, slave to television, who with the promise of being on television becomes sucked into a struggle between her basic human needs and her societal conditioning on appearance.

Drugs become a solution for everyone-- Especially for Burstyn. For the rest of the younger characters it is the standard escape from. But this is far from a standard story of drug-exasperated downward spiral. Told from the camera lens of an average Hollywood director, it would be that cut and dry. Aronofsky shows his talents and breathes big-screen life into Selby's literary work.

Aronofsky shows off his technical prowess with several types of shots and montages that are used throughout the film to give the various scenes the right feel. The actors all do excellent jobs, particularly Burstyn. The Kronos Quartet provide the musical atmosphere to lull the viewer subconsciously into whatever experience Aronofsky wishes the viewer to feel at that time.

But while the technical display is amazing and the soundtrack is as haunting as the film, the real kicker is the aftertaste. After walking away, I just shrugged and thought "it wasn't *that* disturbing". But I remember myself staring, chin dropped, trying to pull away from characters I was identifying with. I was being sucked into their hell with them. I won't have nightmares about this, but after thinking about the film I cannot accept it.

It will get under your skin, and it will find something to push. But in spite (or, perhaps, because of) that, it is an enjoyable film. It is worth watching at least once - just don't watch it if you're already depressed, and make sure you have some time to kill afterwards to dwell on it. You will whether you have the luxury of time or not.

Here's to you, Mr. Darren Aronofsky, for another unsettling insight that is as hard to accept as it is to deny.