My world had originally been rocked by Requiem for a Dream shortly after it was released in 2000. As a typical teenager who occasionally hung around a rough crowd, this film shook me to my core, and scared me straight! Until only days ago, I don’t believe I’d actually sat down and watched the film in its entirety since initially viewing it as a teenager. Amazingly, because its powerful imagery, music, and plot, I had forgotten virtually nothing about this film!
The textbook categorizes this film as being focused on human nature. This categorization is unfortunately highly accurate. As a portion of the film’s synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes describes, “[the characters] cling to the delusions that are slowly destroying their lives, denying reality until at last they are eye to eye with their worst nightmares.” This, admittedly, is a fairly pessimistic view of human nature.
In addition to the focus on human nature, the film’s thematic elements seem to be focused on style and texture. In the words of film critic Cole Smithey, writer/director Darren Aronofsky’s “telling of a story via a constant barrage of emotion, musical inflection, sped-up real time sequences, and quick editing colludes to form cinematic shorthand that plays across an audience’s sense of time and social values unlike any other filmmaker.” Film critic Nick Rogers of Suite101.com goes adds that “[the film’s] editing and sound triggered intense physical discomfort.”
Requiem for a Dream is the type of film that powerfully sends a clear and resounding message to each viewer. The message, however, may be interpreted differently for each viewer. In my opinion, although based in a drug-setting, the broader, universal message of the film is the imperfect dreams of humans and the destruction, both to ourselves and others, these delusions can sometimes cause.
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