Requiem For A Dream - Don't You Dare Dream; Realise Your Nightmares, Please
Quick Thoughts: Requiem For A Dream (2000)
A haunting classic depicting descent and addiction.
Requiem for a Dream is a film I've reviewed many times over, going into detail on my vision of the movie from each character's perspective. This is one of my favourite movies that procured a foundational experience of cinema in me quite some time ago.
Re-watching it today was perhaps the second most affecting experience - after the very first of course - that it has given me. It's been a few years since I have seen this and everything in it feels so much more true and daunting than I remembered. I subconsciously knew it would and avoided its pull for a few days because of this, but gave in and suffered it today.
Requiem works toward extremes in narrative and with its cinematic language as to produce an overwhelming sense of doom. It is not strictly realistic in this regard; sadly, the manifestation of this narrative in the real world is far more subtle and the nightmare that this becomes in reality is unfortunately slightly more bearable than what Aronofsky manifests on screen. Seeing and feeling this today made its evocations so much more powerful, yet I remained slightly grateful that this doesn't manage to capture the mundanity of this drama as it realises itself in the real world. It is highly moral for this; punching where it could have instead just wept at the sad and common realities concerning the loss of dreams.
What struck me hardest in my re-watch today was the affirmation in the film that dreams are curses to some. Dreams are presented as conscious notions and hopes that each character holds before themselves, but refuses to truly strive for. They all would rather rest in the comfort of their failing than sit in the sensation of the pain that pulls them to act in the world. Each and every addiction thus becomes a means of blinding themselves to the darkness required to dream.
Dreams are false; they are but thoughts in the mind. This is their dark side. We must feel the mystery, pain and suffering in our dreams if they are to be grown from; realised to be spirits attempting to guide us in life toward the Jungian 'supreme meaning'. Our characters all hold onto their dreams, refusing to really sleep or wake up with them. They can't be patient with their addictions, be daring in their love, and brave in their use of money. It is astonishing to see how much they hurt themselves for the illusion that everything will be ok. For this is what they all want: an illusion. They daren't realise their dreams because they refuse to believe they are born of nightmares.
The real horror each character sees in this film is not the loss of an arm, the loss of freedom in jail, the loss of sanity and health, the loss of mental fortitude and bodily safety. Each person fears love. It is precisely this that they dream of but can never approach; a love of their parents, of their children, of themselves and their present lives. These characters do not love themselves, and resign to intoxicating suffering for they display no power for real hope and to do what is hard in love. They all go the easy way of ignorance. So Requiem's lesson is not to never do drugs, but to ask yourself what you are really afraid of and manifest this original nightmare, rather than construct a new one to keep you from it.
