4. Requiem For A Dream (2000) - Dir. Darren Aronofsky
I will be honest, I've only ever seen this film once and that was more than enough. This is an incredibly tough film to get through and by the time the credits roll, you feel not only drained but dirty as well. As if the dirty turgid nature of the film has someone how contaminated your own well being. The film deals with three characters and their ongoing battles with addiction. For Harry and Marion, the problem for them is heroin. They initially plan to open a clothing store with their friend Tyrone providing the designs. Through a series of disasters though, that slowly doesn't come to pass as each one results in an even worse condition as the film goes on. Harry ends up losing his arm to heroin through the use of unclean needles, Marion ends up performing in a sex show with men throwing money at her and Tyrone is incarcerated where the threat of attack is a constant worry for himself. In cinema we're so used to seeing characters fight back from squalid conditions, that most films would start at this point and show us the characters fighting back to regain a degree of normality in their lives. However, this is not the case with Aronofsky who it seems wants to show us just how dark and bleak the world can be. The somewhat heartbreaking character of the film is Harry's mother Sara, who receives a letter that tells her she'll be appearing as a contestant on a game show which she loves. Seeing this as a chance to recapture her former beauty, she begins taking weight loss tablets, but discovers that she can't sleep and has to take other tablets to balance herself out. She eventually ends up losing her grip on reality when the invitation seems disingenuous and finds herself committed to a psychiatric hospital, eventually on the receiving end of shock therapy. Each character at is offered a shot at redemption at the start of the film and squanders it, to be left in squalid conditions come the climax. The film really takes it out of you to sit through and when each character gives up hope and assumes the fetal position, you think about joining them, so depressing has the experience become