Requiem for a Dream
Requiem for a DreamThe film Requiem for a Dream is an example of where the system breaks down. This film received an NC-17 from the MPAA. This type of rating says let us protect the youth of Canada by exempting them from a film that in my opinion should be viewed by every high school student. Now usually we would see the film split down the middle and taken to an R so it could be advertised in family newspapers, play in malls, and it could make the people that made it money. Thank God for Artistan. They allowed the film an R rating and with this they allowed their voice changes,…..it matures,…grows up.
Requiem for a Dream is film making at it’s height. When you read the reviews coming out of Toronto you see … “I don’t know if I can say I loved this film, or even that I liked it, but the movie is powerfully dramatic and even brilliant.” Well, I can say I loved it. I can say I liked it and I can say it was powerfully dramatic and assuredly brilliant. I am also of the firm belief that if I see a better film this year I will be ecstatic beyond belief. As of right now I’m shakingly jubilant at having driven way downtown in rush hour traffic and fought with the parking officials, to see a film in a theater with stereo sound and postage stamp screens.
Why do I attack the MPAA? Why do I say the system broke down here? This film should be required viewing by every high school kid in the country. It should be unleashed upon them. Will it disturb them? Will it shake their fragile little minds? Will it possibly make a lifestyle change for them? Yes. Yes. Yes.
This film is brutal in the most aggressively harsh reality moments we have in society.
Darren Aronofsky has made a film that makes use of everything that film makers like Quinten Tarantino have used to redefine “cool” cinema. Every pulse skip, split screen, frame shake, tracking perspective, fish eye world views, trippy music, and grand dialogue. Aronofsky has gone and made a hardcore John Schlesinger-Midnight Cowboy meets Martin Scorese-Taxi Driver world. This is an example of “cool” meeting harsh reality. The film lulls you into thinking.. “oh yeah baby..light me up one of them..prep the needle hon..hand me the blue one..yeeeaahhhhhhhhh.” I don’t want to get into the specifics, but yeah, it gets rough.
Are you happy with where the characters are at the end? No. Should it be different? No. This film has an absolute moral center. I know for a fact that I’ll see this film at least ten times before the end of the year....
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