'Requiem' is ugly yet riveting

Director Darren Aronofsky's fierce view of drug culture from an addict's perspective is so stunning that his audience will have trouble watching it.

By STEVE PERSALL

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 22, 2000

Films about drug addiction usually focus on the external: shooting up, nodding off, sweaty DTs and desperate measures. Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream slips inside the addict's mind like a hypodermic needle into an abscessed track on a junkie's arm.

[Photo: Artisan Entertainment] Sara (Ellen Burstyn) is addicted to diet pills; son Harry’s problem is heroin.

There is nothing pretty about that description or Aronofsky's film. Requiem for a Dream is one of the most harrowing screen experiences ever, a sensory hemorrhage of chemical psychosis and sexual degradation that deserves its NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.

Aronofsky and Artisan Entertainment refused to accept that rating or trim any material that would have led to a more marketable R. The film is being released unrated, causing some theaters and advertising outlets to stay clear. It's a bold stroke for artistic integrity, assuredly fatal to the movie's commercial chances.

Viewers with strong hearts and stomachs who can appreciate a filmmaker effecting a new style of schizoid storytelling should rush to see Aronofsky's developing genius at work.

Aronofsky, 31, burst onto the scene in 1998 with Pi, a $60,000 thriller in which a mathematician discovers a coded numerical link between Wall Street and God. Brilliantly paranoid, Pi introduced Aronofsky's nightmarish blend of rapid-fire impressions and industrial noise. Requiem for a Dream continues that method, refining it, turning the film into its own altered state.

Nothing is beyond Aronofsky's reach as he establishes the causes and effects of drug addiction in four central characters. Odd camera angles and lenses, even a jarring moment when the film appears to jump off the projector sprockets, create a frenzied atmosphere. Split-screen images abound: horizontal for a pill freak contemplating her stash, traditionally vertical for pillow talk among lovers hooked on smack. Aronofsky breathes new life into several cinematic cliches.

Requiem for a Dream is a constant hallucination, even when dealing with the real world. Aronofsky fashions an arresting coda for his addicts, a series of fast images of drugs -- heroin, cocaine, pot, even diet pills -- being prepared and applied, with pupils dilating in hyperspeed and ordinary sound effects mutating into something sinister. Each time the practice occurs, the movie zips into another chapter of self-destruction.

Three lives are already toxic when Requiem for a Dream begins. Harry Goldfarb (Jared Leto) routinely steals his mother's television for money to buy heroin. His girlfriend, Marion Silver (Jennifer Connelly), always waits, devoted to Harry and her dose, as co-dependent as Al Pacino and Kitty Winn in Panic in Needle Park. The third wheel is Tyrone Love (Marlon Wayans), who talks Harry into a big heroin score.

These are the addicts we're accustomed to seeing in films, lowlifes doing anything to satisfy their habits. What they do in Requiem for a Dream, and how vividly Aronofsky depicts it, surpasses any previous film on the topic. Most daring are Harry's drug-damaged health and Marion's descent into selling her body in a public sex show too kinky to describe. It's all part of a personally apocalyptic finale as stimulating and downbeat as any ever filmed.

However, none of that trio is the most pathetic character Aronofsky shoves in our faces. Ellen Burstyn plays Harry's widowed mother, Sara, living among other retirees, at first addicted only to chocolate and a ubiquitous TV game/motivation show. Sara is offered a slim chance of appearing on the show, but she can't fit into her favorite dress.

Diet pills provide a fast, not-so-easy answer. Sara gets hooked, badly, to the point of wasting away physically and mentally. Her refrigerator beckons with X-ray peeks at the goodies inside, then rebels like a possessed appliance as all traces of hunger and sanity vanish. That's only the beginning of her metamorphosis into a madwoman, a key element of Aronofsky's devastating third act.

By placing prescription drugs in the same gutter with heroin, Requiem for a Dream becomes more than an exercise in depravity. It becomes a subtle jab at a society neglecting the connection simply because slim -- or whatever makes you feel better about yourself -- is in. Sara's ravages are constantly compared with those in Harry's group, expanding the scared-straight message to a broader range of addicts in denial.

Burstyn's performance, her bravery in allowing herself to be filmed in such unflattering ways, is astounding. This is one of the great movie performances of recent years. Only Aronofsky's decision to keep his film unrated could stop her nomination for an Academy Award. Burstyn practically deteriorates on-screen, a little old lady on a slippery slide to hell.

Requiem for a Dream is masterfully repellent, making shocked viewers recoil while simultaneously daring us not to look. Turn your head for a split-second and you'll miss something securing Aronofsky's place alongside Paul Thomas Anderson and Spike Jonze in the new vanguard of directors. Keep watching, and you may throw up.

Movie review

Requiem for a Dream

• Grade: A
• Director: Darren Aronofsky
• Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, Christopher McDonald, Louise Lasser
• Screenplay: Darren Aronofsky, Hubert Selby, based on Selby's novel.
• Rating: Not rated; profanity and graphic drug abuse, nudity and sexual situations.
• Running time: 100 min.
• Theaters: Tampa Theatre and Burns Court Cinema in Sarasota.

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