#78 - Requiem for a Dream

“I'm somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon, millions of people will see me and they'll all like me. I'll tell them about you, and your father, how good he was to us. Remember? It's a reason to get up in the morning. It's a reason to lose weight, to fit in the red dress. It's a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow all right. What have I got Harry, hm? Why should I even make the bed, or wash the dishes? I do them, but why should I? I'm alone. Your father's gone, you're gone. I got no one to care for. What have I got, Harry? I'm lonely. I'm old.”

Seeing has been fundamental to the identity of cinema for as long as it has been existed. It has been the means by which we have seen things we never could have imagined previous, both in spectacle and in intensity. It has also been the dream of millions to be in movies and to be seen, to have their shot, their (to borrow Andy Warhol’s, now clichéd, mantra of popularity) 15 minutes of fame. That’s what Sara Goldfarb wants. She sits in her armchair every day, a retired and lonely woman, and watches as the smiling faces, bright lights and constant validity are projected from her small, decrepit, rabbit-eared television. She watched across a gulf of knowing that she will never be on that side of the screen until one day she receives a suspiciously benevolent phone call offering, and not selling, her the opportunity to be on television. This miracle chance becomes her reason for being. She gains a new raison d’etre and decides that she needs to loose the weight of her years of lethargy and sugar addiction and fit back into the red dress that she wore to her son’s graduation, the last time she remembers feeling desired. Sara starts dieting, eating only egg and grapefruit until she is told that there is a regime of pills that can help her loose weight with a fraction of both effort and time. After a gained prescription from an indifferent doctor she beings to loose weight and gain energy, but as time drags on, and the reply from Madison Avenue is not forthcoming, she beings to slip, and her perfect routing begins to become unsustainable. Like the other characters in Requiem for a Dream, her control over her addiction begins to crack and her world becomes more and more enclosed and disturbed.

Sara’s speech to her son, as well as being a highly emotional and fantastic piece of writing, contains both the wish to be seen and to be understood; for someone to see from her point of view. Point of view is key to this film as it require a great amount of compassion, and endurance, to see through to the end the decent each character endures through consequence and addiction. Subjectivity is necessary as people like Sara, Harry, Tyrone and Marion are routinely dismissed in civil society as no-good junkies and scum. It is their point of view that we experience throughout the film through Aronofsky’s use of framing and image. Empathetic subjectivity through image is key to the film’s identity (as signposted by the frequent shots of the eye, whose retina is altered by a fresh dose and which take prominent place on the film’s poster). Without it the film would still be a powerful film, no doubt, but it wouldn’t effectively work the way it does and probably wouldn’t be on this list and it also wouldn’t effectively show the effects the various addictions are having on the film’s central characters.

One example of the use of image is Aronofsky’s use of split screen. Usually a device for either reducing the visual gap between characters during a phone call (most likely to avoid frequently cutting between the two side of a conversation) or for a clever piece of juxtaposition, like in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall where two separate psychiatrist meetings are paired, with even the dialogue alternating scenes between lines (and actually shot at once with a fake wall between scenes). But in a conversation between Harry (Jared Leto) and Marion (Jennifer Connelly) the split screen shows two halves of the same image, the same conversation, only, that there is a delay of a few seconds between what seems like fluid conversation and delayed physical actions. This technique shows them as both together but also distinctly apart and isolated. Each having their own perspective and own individual world that is disconnected from the real world. Along with this, there are a vast amount of similar techniques used to portray a similar unreality and fragmentation (the film itself has around 2000 cuts, as opposed to most films having on average 600-700) and in no way shies away from showing exactly how each addiction takes it’s toll on all the characters.

The film gives a voice to those looking for solace and meaning, but are controlled by their addictions and acts, not as some have feebly called “anti-drug propaganda”, but rather as a viewpoint rarely seen before. Cinema does indeed show worlds rarely seen before, and here is no exception. The core difference being that this is a world that some would rather not see and does exist, and not a world we may wish to see, but doesn’t and deserves to be seen all the more for it (provided you are old enough as it is a VERY tough film).

#36 - Spirited Away

Spirited Away #36

The top animation film in the IMDB top 250 wasn’t made by Disney, isn’t primarily in English, is hand-drawn and isn’t made just to keep kids entertained for two hours whilst parents busy themselves. Instead it was made by a man who believes children need less comics and video games, and who thinks children should only watch, at most, two animated films a year, and yet his film takes the 36^th spot on the (predominately western voted) list of greatest films of all time. What is it that makes Spirited Away as loved and popular as it currently is?

As I mentioned in the post about remakes, films that come from other culture often have a vast amount of cultural, social, historical, religious and political layers that generally will go over the heads of any of the films non-native viewers; these cultural layers are greater in Spirited Away than the majority of foreign films as the world that constitutes the majority of the films is a world made of an almost pure mixture Japanese culture, history and religion. But there is something in Spirited Away that transcends cultural boundaries, something that speaks to the heart of a great many western viewers who may know little, or nothing, about Japanese culture. What I think the common link between all of the films viewers, the unifying aspect that appeals to all, is childhood; that time where everything seemed magic, where anything was possible and where you find out whom you really are.

With elements that either reference, or are reminiscent of, stories like Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz and a dozen folk and fairy tales, there is always a familiar element of being lost throughout the film, of being a child in a seemingly new world. The world seems as unfamiliar and fantastical to us as it does to Chihiro, the films 10-year-old protagonist, and in that shared unfamiliarity we gain sympathy and shared confusion with Chihiro as she encounters the spirit world and its ways.

From the film’s opening image of a goodbye card with Chihiro’s name on it we know that it is going to be a film of finding out who you really are and about finding home and what is truly important. Despite all manner of danger, uncertainty and fear it isn’t what Chihiro gains that is important, it is what she learns about herself. In so many films the protagonist learns that strength only lies in others you have around you and the importance of friends to help you accomplish the impossible (or at least, the really hard), that that is not the case for Spirited Away. Yes, in the beginning Chihiro needs the help of Haku, but by the end it is the strength in Chihiro that helps others find their own place in the world; she helps Haku find out his true name, she finds no-face a home, she cleanses the river spirit of pollution and saves her parents. She finds strength in herself that is often passed over and ignored in a lot of children (and characters). She is not helpless, patronised or looked down on by the films finale, instead she is celebrated by those whom recognise her worth and courage. I honestly think more films should find a character’s worth not only in their friends/allies but in their character’s own self and identity and worth. I think it is this refusal to patronise children that has helped elevate Spirited Away to such lofty heights.

The question that follows, then, is this: is Spirited Away a children’s film? For me the answer is a resounding “no!” I am fully aware that Hayao Miyazaki made this for a certain child, but the merits of the film for me lie in it being about childhood. In a similar vein to Where the Wild Things Are, the film shows the world that being a child is hard, that we shouldn’t forget the wonder of being a child and that we should never look down on, or patronise, children. It is a way of temporarily entering back into the world of childhood to understand who you are by going back to the age when you first started to get a grasp on yourself. I am by no means suggesting children shouldn’t watch this. It is, after all, a wonderfully rich and imaginative film and features a fantastic character that is actually worth looking up to as a role model.

As a final side note, I just wanted to acknowledge two aspects of the film that have stayed with me ever since I first saw it years ago:

1.              The sublime score which I recommend looking up as it is as beautiful as it is mystical and is strongly reminiscent of some of the fabulous pieces of music composed by the superb Ryuchi Sakamoto.

2.              The image of the train travelling alone the surface of the water…