An Analysis of Requiem for a Dream

Requiem for a Dream directed by Darren Aronofsky depicted the marginal life of four characters. All these four characters lived in an abnormal psychological state. Harry, the son of Sarah, got addicted to drugs and he risked selling drugs with his friend (Tyrone) to obtain happiness with his beloved girlfriend, Marion. On the same time, Sarah unexpectedly received an invitation from the TV station, and she decided to lose weight, which caused her get addicted to drugs and have a hallucination. However, both Harry and Sarah did not realize their dreams. This film showed audiences how dreams were broken by the mutual squeezing of illusion and reality. The dramatic tragedy reached to the ultimate in this film. The accelerated destruction of four characters presented the dark side of the dream. The dream is not always good, but it has the opposite aspect. The film pointed out the destruction of four characters lay in their unreality to their real life. In the film, an image of the back shadow of a woman in red always appeared in the form of hallucination or dream when Sarah and Harry came across something unhappy or looked forward to the future. However, neither of these two people realized that the woman in red was only a part of their memories, and it could not appear again in the real world. The woman in red standing by the sea represented a time when Sarah was the most beautiful. Meanwhile, this image also stood for the best time in Harry’s life and memory, when his mother was young and beautiful. When his mother dressed in red picked him up in school, Harry was often jealousy by his classmates. As a sign to satisfy Harry’s vanity, Sarah gave him real happiness. Thus, the image of a woman in red symbolized the hopes of Harry to the happy future life and also reflected the degeneration and ugliness of Harry’s real life. Besides, at the end of the film, Sarah lived in the mental hospital with a severe brain rendered by electric-shock treatments; Harry had to be amputated because of injecting drugs; Marion betrayed her soul and body to get drugs and money; Tyrone was put into jail and suffered from guilty. All these four people huddled up their body, like a baby in the mother’s uterus. This scene illustrated that they failed to make their dreams come true, and the collapse of the real world and spiritual world made them rely on their postures when they were babies in their mothers’ uterus to pursue the familiar sense of security. The only thing to support these people keeping on living was their hallucinations. Thus, their failures and destruction were domed in the real world.

Requiem for a Dream adopted a two-clued narrative structure to present audience the story. The first narrative clue was Sarah’s dream of a TV star and the second one was Harry’s desire for a good life. During the progress of the film, these two clues changed based on their pace and finally interweaved by the collapse of dreams of mother and son, completing the destructive tragic ending. Thus, the story is told with the development of the plot with non-linear sequential manner. At first sight, these two clues seemed to be with no connections but, in fact, they were related to each other because they had the same motivations to foster the development of the story. The broken dreams of Sarah and Harry were out of their nostalgia and hoped for the future life. To show the most beautiful sides in her most favorite TV program, Sarah decided to lose weight and put on the red dress. As an old woman, Sarah could not have a valid result simply by keeping diet, so she began losing weight with the help of medicines. Gradually, Sarah produced physical and psychological dependence on these drugs. Finally, she appeared hallucinations and was sent to the mental hospital. During the electronic treatment, Sarah dreamed her standing in the TV program with the red dress. However, after some currents, the TV dream of Sarah completely broke. For Harry, the appearance of Marion was in the green grass, and she stared at the high-rise apartment in the blue sky. Then Harry embraced and kissed Marion and finally they ran into the high-rise apartment. This scene showed that Harry and Marion wanted to live a happy life and firmly believed their dream could come true. However, their hope for the future collapsed with their addictions to drugs. The mediocre life in the reality propelled them to avoid it, and they could get a limited sense of happiness and satisfactions with the drug. Only with the drug can the happy life be obtained. Drugs brought Harry hallucinations that made him feel the close of his dream, but it was drugs that made him lose an arm and pushed him to the out of control.

As for characters, Sarah’s character propelled the progress of the plot. As one of the protagonists in the film, Sarah was the most miserable person. For a widow, her only interest was watching TV. She believed that her life was wasted until she was dead. She could only see her son every few months. So once the life provided her a chance to change, Sarah would seize the opportunity. Due to her character, the story could continue. Besides, all the four protagonists in the film were very fragile and weak. They did not have strong personal wills, and they did not fight for their dreams. They always buried themselves in the hallucinations, which caused their tragic endings.

In this film, the parallel montage cinematography was employed. The scene where Sarah cleaned the house to depress her appetite was directed by Darren Aronofsky with the transition to the quick and slow shot. The shot was slowly moved from right to left while the motion of people accelerated. Besides, there was a scene where the skinny mother walked in the street and passengers around her were accelerated. These two shots manifested the vast differences between the mother and ordinary people and produced the dramatic effect. The director also used the perspective of lens and CG lens to show the hallucinations and mental world of the mother. Upgraded shots were of great significance to show the mental activities of characters. After Sarah had eaten the medicine and she began to do the housework. Two shots depicting the opening and closing the refrigerator’s door showed the anxiety of Sarah. Moreover, Sarah ate chocolate and watched TV that transmitted the sound of “juicy, juicy”, and the picture showed Sarah enjoyed her food. This scene contrasted with the later life where Sarah was in a trance condition and did not eat at all.

Except for the cinematography, the film had an excellent editing. The film had three chapters, namely, summer, autumn, and winter. The director edited the spring which stood for hope with purpose. With the progress of the movie, the pace of the film increasing accelerated. Editing played a significant role in changing the time and space, completing narration and highlighting the atmosphere. One bright point of the film was the editing of the hallucination of drug addicts. Harry met with a police officer with a gun, and he wanted to steal the weapon. Gun represented rights or systems in most American films. Harry, who had hallucinations intent to destroy the system but he recovered to be sane in the reality, implying the helplessness to fight against the system. This editing propelled the film to the margin of collapse. Through intensive and continuous editing, the way of narration changed. When Sarah produced hallucinations to the food, refrigerator with food suddenly opened the mouth and said “feed me” and TV host came into Sarah’s home and made love with Sarah on TV. Editing made impossible hallucinations happened in the reality possible in the film with the pictures, which formed dramatic contrast and conflict. Also, the use of stop-motion animation to show the Sarah’s desire for food was ingenious.

The film was one of the outstanding cult films with its unique artistic features. The cult film had unique creative perspectives in commercial film and directly presented the creation and personal characteristics of the director. With strong individual shots and pictures, Requiem for a Dream showed the audience a hard and weird theme. All protagonists in the film were addicted to drugs and ultimately destructed by the drugs. For example, the film directly depicted the feeble struggles of people in front of drugs, which was very special. Many great descriptions of the psychological state of the characters with powerful or steady ways because the pursuit of characters was unreal. The fantastic dreams needed to be destroyed. What’s more, the quick change of the pictures and powerful editing were outstanding personal features of the director. Facing with the old and painful face of Sarah, it did not only show the sufferings of the Sarah; the audience would suffer, too. With the outstanding black note, the audience watched four characters feeding drugs again and again and finally walked into desperation. If the editing were not astonished you or the feeling of addicts was too far away with you, the gradual fading of people’s lives was torture to people’s heart, which was tough for people to accept. However, the ending of the film, it could see the fading of four characters. They did not die, but they heavily suffered.

When I saw this film, I was shocked. I saw this film with extreme desperation and depressions. The film directed to reveal the dark side of the humanity and the society. The gray atmosphere predicted the tragic ending of the film. I liked this film because of its significant social values. When seeing it, I could not help thinking what was wrong with characters in the film. Sarah’s relations with drugs were mostly out of her loneliness. If the society and Harry gave more love to Sarah, Sarah’s tragedy might be avoided. Moreover, the film was a good warning to people who intended to take drugs or had taken drugs. The film was more powerful than that propagation against drugs.