journal features

movie review - Requiem for a Dream

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Vancouver, 2002.01.20

Another amazing movie from the director of 'Pi'. While it deals with the by-now familiar theme of "drugs are bad, m'kay", it's also a harrowing tale of the destruction of people and the abandoning of their dreams.

And while the cinematography, music, and sets build an aura of impending destruction, nothing in the movie quite prepares you for the last fifteen minutes. This movie appears like fairly normal Hollywood fare but you're into "they should be showing this in high schools" territory before it's over. And I say this despite barely feeling like an adult myself at thirty. I mean, there is no delicacy here in the handling of the message, and some might feel it goes overboard.

Strongly recommended. For those who can stomach it.

rand()m quote

A creative person would prefer their music to be stolen and enjoyed than ignored. This is the dilemma for every creative soul: he or she would prefer to starve and be heard than to eat well and be ignored.

—Pete Townshend