Requiem+for+a+Dream

The film I´m going to talk about is “Requiem for a dream”, by Darren Aronofsky. It has an 'enjoyable' plot: Harry is a drug addict who gets money selling drugs with his girlfriend (Marion) and his best friend (Tyrone). At the same time, his mother becomes a drug addict too, when she tries to lose weight. But all the plans they had made change suddenly. Harry, Marion and Tyrone use all the drugs themselves, so they begin to be more addicted than before. The rest of the film is about how they try to get more drugs. In the final scene, my favourite, we can watch parallel the stories of the four characters. On the one hand, Harry's mother goes mad, and she has to receive an special electroshock treatment. Also, Harry is ill due to some serious infection in his arm. Finally, the doctors have to amputate it. On the other hand, Marion begins to prostitute herself in order to get money to buy drugs. On top of all that, Harry's best friend is sent to prison as a consequence of his addiction. Referring to the technical aspects of the film, we have to stress the editing and the beautiful soundtrack, which became very famous after this film. I´m going to mention two of the methods used by the director. Firstly, the use of the camera incorporated to the body´s actor. And secondly, the hip-hop editing, which consits on a secuence of images shown very quickly with music, normally to represent an action, like drug using. In my opinion, the film tries to reflect how the human mind can be trapped in the present society. It shows characters who can´t escape from their worlds, of themselves, and four different stories of drug addicts. Four different people who, apparently, don´t have reasons to be drug addicts. But they are, each one in their way. This makes me wonder if all of us are drug addicts as a result of this society. Maybe, you have to drink two or three coffees every day; maybe you have to use Internet or the telephone two hours per day; or maybe you have to watch your favourite programme every night. I believe this is the main idea of the film.

(Raquel Melgar)