Requiem For A Dream

I just watched Requiem For A Dream on Hulu.com, after reading Mr Bennett's blog post. Wow.

Requiem For A Dream (2000) stars Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, and Ellen Burstyn. To this date, I have never seen a movie that has made me more uncomfortable than this one. I have seen countless gory slasher films and otherwise repulsive movies, but this one takes the cake. There was not a single scene in the movie that didn't make my skin crawl.

That being said, there was a lot of merit to the movie as well. It was skillfully shot, and there were many clever camera angles that Director Darren Aronofsky utilizes to drive his point home. He captures the adverse affects of consistent drug use and addiction over the course of time, even though there is only one scene of someone shooting up in the entire movie. Aronofsky uses a series of cuts that show an eyeball dilating and other clever gimmicks. I have never seen something like this in film, and I found it to be an extremely clever and innovative substitute for constantly showing the act of drug use.

As an audience member, you find yourself completely immersed in the lives of the four characters. The plot is chaotic and hard to follow at times, but I think this plays into the director's vision of the chaos surrounding the lives of this sorry quartet. Requiem For A Dream is a movie that can be analyzed endlessly, because it is so much more than a movie about drugs. It is a meditation on corruption, greed, loneliness, and love. I've seen addiction in my own life in many forms, and I think that this film is fairly accurate it's description. Drug use is analyzed as a method of escapism, because each person driven to drugs has a root problem that they must run from, something I found to be extremely realistic and true to life.

I think that this movie is much more powerful to teenagers rather than adults as Mr. Bennett said, because of the parallels it may possess to the teenage lifestyle. I think we are affected more, because we are most likely around drugs more, and also, because many teenagers are constantly tempted with one of this movie's themes, escapism. Young people are forced to come to terms with a lot of things in their life when they reach a certain age, and the ones that cannot cope or have difficulty seek solace in whatever they can. Video games, movies, drugs, and many other things are mediums of escapism. It may affect us more because these themes often apply to young people. This is of course, is a generalization, I'm not saying escapism applies exclusively to young people, but it could be a reason why this film has a differing impact on different age groups.

This movie is one of the most powerful I have ever seen, and it was incredibly sad. The relationship between Harry and Marion went from perfect to nothing in the span of Summer to Winter. I think the scene where Harry calls up Marion from Florida, who he left back in New York so he could score drugs, is the saddest scene I've ever seen. Marion asks Harry to "come home tonight" as she is getting ready to go to an orgy, forced to degrade herself for her addictions. Harry can only say that he will, but both know that this will never happen.

This movie will have you thinking for a long time after you watch it. It is one of the best movies that I have ever seen, but I think I will not watch it again, at least not anytime soon. I would advise everyone mature enough to go watch it and see for yourself.

Cohen Brothers

I just saw Fargo earlier today, and I decided to write a more informal review about it to express my disdain for the Cohen brothers and their work. I personally haven't liked any of the Cohen brothers movies that I have seen (No Country For Old Men, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, Burn After Reading) and I'm going to make some statements about the Cohen brothers that I've gathered from the movies I have seen. So, hardcore fans, please don't get all offended and start pulling out obscure Cohen films that don't fit the mold that I'm about to state, because I haven't seen them.

The irony of most Cohen brothers movies is the fact that they are so damn formulaic. This is ironic because they are reputed to be a mish-mash of all these crazy circumstances and uniquely odd/quirky characters. These characters could never be repeated in any other movies, right? Or could they?

All of the Cohen Brothers movies have a static character in their films, someone who is unchanged(in thought or opinion) by the end of the movie, and this character is never fazed by any of the crazy events that are going on around them. An example of this would be jerry Lundegaard in Fargo, who negotiates the terms of his wife's kidnapping as if it were a car sale, not knowing that his wife was in the hands of killers. Or Brad Pitt's idiotic character in Burn After Reading. These characters are focused on a single, ultimately, unimportant thing for the entire movie. This is one part of the formula.

The next part of the formula has two parts. Part one includes a nice little bit of intense violence. This is to disgust the audience or startle them, and it serves as a contrast to the second part. The second part is a bit of normal, boring, banter. Everyday, inconsequential things just take up screen time, and you wonder, why do I have to watch some hippie walk around in his underwear for twenty minutes? I mean, I can do these things at home, movies cost a lot these days! If there is a reason this mix of violence/mundaneness is in every single movie, then it is lost on me.

The third part of a Cohen Brothers movie is adultery. Throw in some scenes where there is the tempation or actual act of adultery, and there you have it. I don't know why this could contribute to a movie other than in helping tie the bizarre coincidences together at the end, but that's just me.

I'm not saying a formulaic movie can't be a good one, it's just that I find the Cohen Brothers formula to be very unbearable. I challenge and invite you all to comment on this, but please remember that it is my opinion, and each one of us sees something different when we see a film!

So there you have it, another Cohen Brothers masterpiece! Mix it all together and let it sit and you've got some Oscar nominations!!