The last film I saw by Darren Aronofsky was the superb Black Swan, and when I came out of it I
was exhilarated, terrified, thrown completely off kilter and just spewing
adjectives left, right and centre. My reaction to Requiem for a Dream was very similar, so here goes with the descriptions which just fell out of my mouth.
This is brutal, unrelenting, depressing, crushing, painful,
horrific, brilliantly made, quietly clever, devastating and, all in all,
the most horrid film I’ve ever seen, but in the best possible way. The fact is
that this is a masterful piece of filmmaking from a man who, at the time of its
release, was only 31, and it is a thrilling example of visionary filmmaking
that will grip you from the start, but it goes on to torture you and as things
get worse and worse, and then catastrophically ghastly, you cannot tear
yourself away from it and, I for one will admiringly refer to it a lot from this point
forward, but I’m never watching it again because to do so would be frankly sadomasochistic.
