Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000)
I hadn't been avoiding this film exactly, but I wasn't in a particular hurry to get to it. Part of it was its reputation as a tough watch, but I also got the feeling in recent years that its stock had gone down pretty fast, that it was a film "of its time" that hadn't aged well, that was a big deal for a certain generation but that wouldn't hold up.
Well, I don't know if people actually think that or if I had only constructed that narrative in my head, but I'd disagree with it either way. What I'm most surprised here is by how accomplished the dilmmaking is, and how well Aronofsky's agressive style - and I should also give credit to Matthew Libatique and Jay Rabinowitz, since the editing and cinematography are so key here - works in service of the film. Despite Leto and Burstyn's forced Jersey accents (probably the single worst choice this film makes), there's a sense of universality here which is fitting of a story which is essentially a modern fable. It's blunt (in occasionally ridiculous ways, such as the "Fall" intertitle's brutality), but not excessively didactic and has quite a bit more on its mind than simply addiction, or even modern alienation. Whether what it has to say is original or deep is quite beside the point though: what matters is that it does so in an effective and striking manner.
The performances are a big part of what makes it work, obviously. Coming in, I knew Ellen Burstyn was supposed to be the standout and I was sligthly dreading Jared Leto, who's become a parody of himself in recent years to the point that one can wonder if there was every anything there in the first place... as it turns out (and excepting the regrettable accents), Burstyn is indeed remarkable, and Leto is quite good himself, esepcially when acting opposite Burstyn and showing a more caring side to his character. But the performance I found myself drawn to the most, possibly because I wasn't expecting to, was Connelly's. They're all tragic figures that the film sets up to be crushed, but she's the one whose story still feels unfinished by the end of the film, or perhaps more accurately, the one who has the most open-ended arc. I can see how it might look exploitative (especially the final sequence), but I think the film treads that line relatively well, and she lets her character be more than simply a victim.
Finally, there's the elephant in the room, the glu that holds the film together and perhaps its biggest cultural legacy: Clint Mansell's score. It's very much of its time, but not in a way that I found distracting at all: weirdly it still manages to imbue the film with a sense of universal fatalism. It certainly doesn't qualify as subtle, but Aronofsky doesn't overuse the famous crescendo part of it either (I think it shows up three times total), and the it goes through more variations than I was expecting, too.
In the end, it's not a film I'd call a favorite because - predictably - I don't really see myself rewatching it. It belongs in the same category of A Clockwork Orange to me, of films I admire and respect, and even connect to strongly at times, but can't quite love as much as their directors other works (in this case, Black Swan remains Aronofsky's crowning achievment for me even though it is a less "clean", less accomplished film in some ways). Still, very much worthy of its status.
8/10