Requiem for A Dream
Too many thoughts were gushing through my brain, most of them being melancholic.
Best Friend leaving in ten days as she moves to Pakistan forever and ever.
The Script is stuck with so many loopholes, that I could enjoy a crap fested bath.
Pather Panchali was so depressing, I cant even lift my face up.
I decide to make it much more of a mindfuck than it already is, and support my sadistic pleasures with more thoughts gushing through my brain.
Cut to Flashback: One month ago
Oh as I walk in the cold rain, and the feelgood factor, as I travel onto cloud nine(really?!)after watching them romance on the beaches of Miami, a snatch of song on my lips, and God knows what he’s doing when we find out that Priyanka Chopra is finally back with John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan. But hey! It was Bobby Deol.
Ah as that breaks my heart(really?!), and I certainly need a faceful of ice water in a rusty bucket of reality, and watch this movie in a darkened room with some suicide-inducing treatise on the futility of life.
Requiem for a Dream is a film that doesn’t fall into any of your stereotypical category that you might like to form, it is a film that doesn’t let you sleep, that can urge many to shut the television hard and not watch anything for the rest of the day, it did nothing of that sort to me. It made me fall in love with the movie itself, a movie that I saw back to back, simply for fudging my brains out completely, and cutting me into pieces.
It does not take you in an enchanting happy journey into the beautiful mountains of Alps, it rather takes you in the dark bylanes where three teenagers live their life out doing all sorts of drugs, having the time of their life. Then what goes wrong? Do the drugs instantly kill them? If you think so, kindly shut your stereotypical vision about drugs and it’s effects and watch it to believe it.
It is about three teenagers, their myopic thinking that more the drugs, more the fun, more the money, and better the life. But wait let’s stop here. Who doesn’t think like that?
All of us go through an impressionable age, where we tend to find smoking up, doing drugs, bottling down a bottle of alcohol or just simply fucking around with a chic, really really fun! But wait, we all find the last option fun right? Ah well certainly.
But it is not just about the three mislead, misguided teenagers, we have a mother who is obssessed with the television, and one call from a television show, and she is ready to wear her favourite dress she wore ages ago!
It’s been ages, and everyone gets fat, and there she wants to be fit again, and still enjoy her delicious hamburgers. But there is a way to everything, and some people fortunately or unfortunately choose the easy or sometimes the wrong way to achieve that.
The film goes on to show that it isnt only the young teenagers that get influenced with shortcuts and convenient ways, an old wise enough mother goes through pretty much the same, or worse.
More over, the film does not go very deep into any of it’s characters, the layers are very thin, and at the end of the film, you barely get to know the characteristics of the character, I don’t even remember the names of the characters but you are satisfied with the exemplary execution of the labyrinthine interplay of their lives.
But the psychology of each of the characters is what makes you relate to the movie. Harry, Marion and Tyrone(Got it from IMDB) are happy with the way their life is taking a high, money is on the pot, and the drug quotient is supremely in supply, they need nothing else other than the new tricks they keep trying. But there comes a test and as their frolic summer gets over, it’s time for ‘Fall’, the literal autumn fall or their decline, for you to decide, and then comes the stark winter, which shows them the transperency of life. The mother is busy taking pills day in and out thinking she would be fit enough to wear her favourite dress very soon.
On the other hand, the film acts like a dark visual treat with it’s excellent cinematography and the grim drug visuals every few minutes multiplying the sour feel to the film inexpilicably.
It does not tend to be preachy with why we take drugs, and why we should avoid drugs. Who the fuck needs all that crap. I already have a counsellor every month in school to tell me about the ‘ill effects’ of drugs, I don’t need a film to go on and on about that. Neither do we need rehabilitation stories about Britney Spears. The film acts as an almost clinical depiction of lives laid to waste.
But the film that simply tells us what happens, and leaves the decision to us, but I can challenge anyone who has seen the movie to have the audacity or the courage to still inject heroin down his veins. If they do, the film fails then.
Ironic as it may be, a few scenes capture your eye, and still manages to make you move away from it. Like the particular scene where Harry and Tyrone are drug ridden and are being tick listed for work, and the employer looks at Harry’s hand. That single shot convinced me never to do drugs again. It was cerainly that powerful, or the scene where the mother gets impressed by the shortcut of diet pills rather than the longer way, it was all so natural. The scenes do get undescribably gory and graphic, at times very uncomfortable, almost urging me to move away from the screen, and that’s what it’s meant to do, I feel so.
Based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jr, Darren Aronofsky deserves an applause, with some very competent editing, but also for a film that races with it’s undescribable pace and it’s labyrinthine interplay
‘Like the yellow pages, movies are not always about the nice things in life’, and I certainly urge that the film is shown at every insititute and school, and I remember after watching the movie as I started to read a book, my eyesight and words fumbled. My little cousin asked me the matter
“What happened?” he asked inquisitevly
After a long pause “ Hhhaaave yoou eevvver bin miindfuud”? I fumbled with every letter
“ What the fuck? Mind what?” he replied
“ Mind fucked” I said “And it’s better you havent’,
As I picked up my cola vowing to never ever watching it again, twenty minutes literally down the line, and I was back onto my laptop, with the movie inserted back again.
CUT TO: Current situation
Best friend boards her flight to Pakistan, the script is swimming through it’s eleventh draft, Ray is still etched onto my brain, and as I’m back from my picturesque vacation in Ireland, I’ve realised the world is not certainly not as ugly as I imagine.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Oh boy! Awesome post.
Hi Jehan, great post and nice writing too..
Will hav to watch this one..
From your review..I Guess it will make me introspect a bit… ;)
Requiem for a Dream is certainly a great cinematic experience. But my personal opinion is this movie has been reviewed to death in all possible film sites (incl this).
However, a nice write up Jehan. It’s great to know that a movie CAN change people in a good way.
It’s an awesome movie. I love the soundtrack too.
@ Jehan- nice post to announce your return from the vacation.Was expecting you to be fully charged up & all that- but looks like you’ve been into a lot of introspection.And yes the world is certainly not so ugly as you think
Welcome back with a great post on an excellent movie. Love most of Arronofsky’s movies, including Fountain, which many hated. And of course this movie has one of my favorites, Jennifer Connelly, surely one of the few actresses with a killer combo of looks n talent.
‘Like the yellow pages, movies are not always about the nice things in life’ hahaha .. liked that ! A nice post to a nicer movie
Thanks Tanul!
Yes Rahul, if my post can make anybody watch that film, or more so leave drugs, awesome
True Arun, I felt the same, it’s just that I felt too strong with this film, I rarely get an urge to talk about a film very strongly.
D&C- Bang On! I realised later I missed writing about the soundtrack, that was something that had me hooked totally!
Thanks Sethu sir!
And Ratnakar Sir, I loved Fountain too, it was awesome, obviously no comparisons, but very innovative!
Thanks Scrapmaniac :D
You’re back? So soon? An amazingly well written post, Jehan. Some movies are meant to ‘miindfuud’ you, this will always be on that list.
I hate to come back from trips, and this one was particularly short, grr i like irish people. But 16 days, ah well not bad!
And this was also a movie that made an awesome viewing while still managing to mindfuck, unlike many other films who manage the mindfuck with non linear editing and dizzy camera angles..
Thanks alot Arun sir
I totally agree with you Jehan that it should be showed to all the schools and other institutions.
Requiem for a Dream is a hauntingly beautiful and it would numb anyone who manages to watch it till the end. Its not a movie you would watch over and over again but you would be glad that you watched it.Kudos to Darren Aronofsky Jr.