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DVD
Lions Gate
Publisher: Artisan
Matthew J. Libatique
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Actors: Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Connelly, Keith David, Louise Lasser, Christopher McDonald
Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 02/18/2003 Rating: Ur
Employing shock techniques and sound design in a relentless sensory assault, Requiem for a Dream is about nothing less than the systematic destruction of hope. Based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jr., and adapted by Selby and director Darren Aronofsky, this is undoubtedly one of the most effective films ever made about the experience of drug addiction (both euphoric and nightmarish), and few would deny that Aronofsky, in following his breakthrough film Pi, has pushed the medium to a disturbing extreme, thrusting conventional narrative into a panic zone of traumatized psyches and bodies pushed to the furthest boundaries of chemical tolerance. It's too easy to call this a cautionary tale; it's a guided tour through hell, with Aronofsky as our bold and ruthless host. The film focuses on a quartet of doomed souls, but it's Ellen Burstyn--in a raw and bravely triumphant performance--who most desperately embodies the downward spiral of drug abuse. As lonely widow Sara Goldfarb, she invests all of her dreams in an absurd self-help TV game show, jolting her bloodstream with diet pills and coffee while her son Harry (Jared Leto) shoots heroin with his best friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) and slumming girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly). They're careening toward madness at varying speeds, and Aronofsky tracks this gloomy process by endlessly repeating the imagery of their deadly routines. Tormented by her dietary regime, Sara even imagines a carnivorous refrigerator in one of the film's most memorable scenes. And yet... does any of this have a point? Is Aronofsky telling us anything that any sane person doesn't already know? Requiem for a Dream is a noteworthy film, but watching it twice would qualify as masochistic behavior. --Jeff Shannon
| Customer Reviews: |
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| A Sobering Tale of Addition, Drugs and Broken Dreams |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Elegant and melancholy, Requiem is an unsettling drama that is as beautiful visually as its subject matter is depressing.
Each scene is excellently framed and contrasts in lighting, colors and settings allow the film's mood to parallel the highs and lows of the character's circumstances. As their predicament spirals out of control, and they shed the last vestiges of dignity and restraint, the film hurls you into their darkness - a chasm of moral bankruptcy, hopelessness and decrepitude.
Requiem approaches the material with an objectivity that often feels brutally cold, but it handles the characters with a tenderness that makes their already mournful fates emotionally crushing for the viewer. The film does not offer us the comfort of a happy ending, so don't expect to go home smiling.
The movie ultimately ends on a note that is starkly (and unavoidably) anti-drug, but this is not a preachy movie with some hidden moral agenda. The objective here is not to highlight the evils of drug use, but to mourn the human cost, weighed in hopes dashed, lives derailed and loves forsaken. This is after all, a requiem, a rueful ode to dreams buried and lost forever.
The Directors Cut DVD is the only version you should consider buying. It contains the full unedited version with mature material that was removed from the watered down theatrical version. Not a movie you'll watch often, but one that will always resonate when you do. Highly recommended.
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| REQUIEM FOR A DREAM |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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GREAT DVD AT A FRACTION OF THE COST. MATURE AUDIENCE ONLY. ELLEN BURSTYN IS FANTASTIC.
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| No subtitle options?? |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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On of the most amazing films I've got in my collection and offers no subtitle options for any language at all, not even English?. How can this be?. Did they just forget that there are other people out in the world that do not speak English?. What a bummer. From having this DVD as one of my favorite options to share with my non English speaking friends, now I have it at somewhere in the middle of my DVD shelf. Out of the 100 points that I had given the film, just for the no subtitle options I take 30 away, so now is a 70 point movie for me. Such a shame.
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| One of the most overrated films of all time? |
| Customer Rating: 2 out of 5 |
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I give this film high marks for its editing and ability to hold true to its gut-wrenching focus from beginning to end. It's hard film to watch...but it also lacks much of a reason to.
The story, if you want to call it that, starts and finishes at the same point. There is no beginning, middle or end...it's just a sequence (though a terrifying one at that).
For a film to take itself as seriously as this one does, a viewer should...no wait, NEEDS to care about the characters. For me, at no point did I feel much sympathy or care about any of them, with the exception of maybe the mother.
Despite my frustrations with the script, it is well acted. It's gritty and certainly conveys the despair and dark underworld of addiction. But again, without any sort of arc, I never felt sucked into it and was really expecting some sort of payoff, which never occurred.
The editing is certainly unique and worth showing to film students. I've never seen a film like it from that standpoint.
If you can ignore the writing and just "go along for the ride", then its worth a watch. Personally, I was hoping for more.
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| Modern Classic |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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The only reason I rented this movie was because I loved the music on the trailer I watched.
Wow. Words really can't describe all the emotions this movie made me feel, ansd I think it may be the only film that has made me feel this way. I loved the story, character, tthe way it was filmed, and oh my god the symbolism! I think that if you had 10 diffrent people sit down at the same time and asked them some questions, you could have ten siffrent opinions, and maybe even what the people thought the movie reprsenrs. This is now one of my favorite films, the greatest part for me is the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack, that has entered my soul, and can make me weep. Please, watch this film, and decide for yourself. You may be really glad you did.
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