'Requiem for a dream' (2000), a movie adopted from a book of same title, is of Psychological drama genre primarily explores the pleasure driven compulsiveness of its four protagonists. Whenever we talk about addiction drug abuse comes to fore right away. That is such, for drug addiction has ostensive impact on its user as well as to other institutions related to its user. But more often than not we forget other addictive substances and pursuits prevalent in our day to day life. This movie has successfully drawn its audience's attention to some of those and sketched a grim picture of their implications as well.
Happiness, often, is confused with pleasure. Yet happiness is a virtue to attain while pleasure is a state of brain stemming from pleasurable visual such as porn or TV, nerve stimulating drug intaking, sugar ingesting, daydreaming and many such others. Our brain differentiates pleasure from other experiences but pleasure from anything and everything works the same. Whenever we bite a pizza full of cheese, meat and other spicy ingredients dopamine rushes to our sensory. A feel good entices us. This same neurological process takes place whenever someone 'loves' our post on facebook or instagram. No matter how counter intuitive it may seem, this is true for marijuana intaking to sugar dripping "Rosshogolla" devouring. Shopping too gives us dopamine rush which explains why some of us can't come back home from malls without depleting the wallet.
Despite our high regard for happiness, we have built a society which in all practicality depends on its members pleasure seeking behaviour. Consumerism is pleaserism. A constant impulse to fill a hole by buying stuff yet that hole remains as it always has been. We are told or taught how imperfection dragging us to unhappiness, so we must strive at all time to be happy at any cost. But the hole can't be incessantly be fed, some have means some don't. Pleasure is sold in a happiness wrapped packet. And brain being the way it is, has fall for it for millennia, more so now than ever. Advertisement, friends photos of 'perfect' celebration of life in news-feeds evokes a sense of guilty in us for we have failed to make us happy.
Depression or such conditions get prevalent. Some die in desperation and most others take refuge to escapist pursuits; Drugs, cat videos, never ending feed scrolling, porn, TV and maybe daydreaming too.
Addiction is such, even though we are aware of the control it has over us we are too numb to have any control over it. Helplessness encroaches the sense of our being. We do things beyond us. 'Requiem for a dream' depicts such desperation of four addicted protagonists all too well in its 'winter' act. Three part of the film; Summer, Fall, Winter; in that sequence, tells a story of a widowed TV obsessed mother, her heroin addicted son with his two other friends.
Symbolism and metaphors have been used over and over again in story telling though never evoking boredom. As story progressed color of the frames faded, gradually, away despite starting in a shining suburban landscape, letting us a stroll in the dark ally of pleasure.