'Requiem for a Dream': The drug war's secret weapon
By Brent McConkey
Old Gold and Black

> February 1, 2001

Going to the movies ought to be fun.

For my more dedicated readers out there (assuming such a fanatical contingent does indeed exist), you may recognize the previous sentence as the opening to last week’s review of Snatch. In it, I essentially praised the ability of the film to provide an insubstantial, mindless, pointless two hours of cinematic entertainment. Occasionally, these types of “fun pictures” hit the spot.

At the opposite pole of the film spectrum exists Requiem for a Dream, the second offering from Pi creator Darren Aronofsky. Like other art forms, film possesses the special ability to generate deep emotions among its audience through the content it presents, perhaps even more powerfully than other mediums because it is able to show visually what the others may leave to your imagination to censor. Sometimes these images are pleasant and reassuring. Other times they are less so. Make no mistake about it, Requiem for a Dream certainly falls into the latter category as a brilliant yet utterly terrifying film.

Like Traffic, another critically heralded film of recent months, Requiem for a Dream revolves around the consequences resulting from a life of drugs. Unlike Traffic, however, Requiem examines the problem not on a societal or national level, but rather on an individual level — this is your brain on drugs. Jared Leto stars as Harry Goldfarb, a modest young man from Brooklyn who cares about his friends, loves his girlfriend, wants his widowed mother to be happy and is addicted to heroin. At the same time that he, his girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) and his buddy Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) slowly slip deeper into their chemical dependence, his lonely mother Sara (Ellen Burstyn) begins taking diet pills in the hopes of fitting into a beloved red dress. Sara thinks that by slimming down she may have a chance to appear on a television game show. Instead, she too develops a terrible addiction to the stimulants, which gradually destroy the woman from the inside out. As the film develops and reveals the addictions of its characters in sad, stark and sickening detail, the truly tragic nature of drugs takes on an entirely new meaning.

Aronofsky has crafted one of the most disturbing films ever made. I do not hesitate for a moment to make that declaration, nor in mentioning that Requiem makes other recent discomforting films such as Boys Don’t Cry, Menace II Society, In the Company of Men and Saving Private Ryan seem like “very special episodes” of 7th Heaven. I say this not to discourage anyone from questioning the excellence of the film but rather to prepare you for a very powerful, very intense trip to the theater. This is not first-date material and it’s not for the squeamish. Although you will leave aching, sluggish, genuinely ill at ease and quite possibly with a migraine headache, the experience of Requiem is undeniably worthwhile.

Employing a distinct visual style that makes MTV look like Masterpiece Theatre, Aronofsky’s direction puts the audience directly in the character’s trip by using jarring, lightning-fast and disorienting movements, angles and cuts. Rather than a soothing high, however, the euphoric experience is rendered as a hellish montage of sights and sounds, followed by an insatiable craving for more. Aronofsky, working from an adaptation of the novel by Hubert Selby, Jr., runs with this craving, likening it to other addictions such as food, sex and television that some people use to alleviate their feelings of emptiness. The script humanizes the crisis by demonstrating that it’s not simply junkies and scum that have a problem — it’s just that the habit they fell into is much more destructive than that of others who rely on chocolate and daytime television to provide their fix. Perhaps by understanding this, we can perhaps begin to understand how to best deal with the problem.

Personifying the extraordinary lengths to which addicts will go in order to satisfy their sickness, Leto, Wayans, Connelly and particularly Burstyn deliver astounding performances. Leto continues an impressive streak of daring roles (Urban Legend notwithstanding) in part by using his handsome features to convey the basic goodness of Harry. He hates his addiction and he wants to be an innocent with a normal life, but he is too consumed by an illness that is destined to annihilate him. Connelly also demonstrates the depravity to which one might succumb in the hysteria of addiction, with gruesome results. Finally, Burstyn simply transforms into her character, turning the lonely, loveable mother into an incoherent, devastating mess. Although she may not win any awards for such a painful role, this might be the performance of the year.

Requiem for a Dream represents the power of film at the same time it discusses the power of drugs. It is an engrossing, unsettling and painful experience that will stay in your system for a while to come. I can’t imagine anyone actually wanting to see a drug, let alone try one after watching this film, which perhaps could be a positive tool in teaching our nation’s teenagers. In the very least Requiem for a Dream is guaranteed to open your eyes to a tremendous problem with tragic consequences that you may not enjoy but won’t soon forget.