The Machinist
HJ Links
—Review by Darrel Manson
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film pdf
—Spiritual Connections
Everything about The Machinist is designed to creep you out --the blue lighting, the music full of reeds and strings (and a bit of theremin) reminiscent of 50s horror films, and, most of all, the skeletal Christian Bale, who is said to have lost sixty-five pounds for the film. All of this sets the mood for a psychological thriller.
Trevor Reznik has been awake for the past year. He's been suffering severe insomnia. He spends the nights scrubbing his floor with a toothbrush and bleach, visiting his prostitute girlfriend, or sitting in an airport diner drinking coffee and talking to the friendly waitress. During the day he works as a machinist on an assembly line where he gets along with the workers, but angers his supervisor.
The trouble with such sleep deprivation is that it can lead to paranoia, hallucinations, and other mental problems. All this lack of sleep is taking its toll on Trevor. Accidents happen, or are they accidents? Notes with a game of hangman start appearing on Trevor's refrigerator. As we watch the film, we begin to wonder just what is, and what isn't, real.
The Machinist is a bit like crossing a Hitchcock film with The Twilight Zone. It has the kind of overwhelming mood that Hitchcock was so adept at producing. It also has the kind of discovery as we come to the end that made The Twilight Zone so popular. As Trevor struggles to understand the things that seem to be happening to him, he eventually needs to struggle to understand himself.
One of the problems with trying to review psychological thrillers is that by their nature, you can’t say much about them without giving away the twists and turns that make them so intriguing. And although I think many people will readily figure out what is happening, it is the “why things are happening like this� that makes for the mystery.
In the end, we get a glimpse into some important questions about life. We think about how one deals with guilt. We think about the power of confession to set us free. We think about the way we try to hide from our problems, but know that the more we hide, the more powerful those problems become.
The Machinist is an excursion into the darkness that can overwhelm people. As the truth of the story is revealed, we discover that the truth may be the way out of the darkness. It is then we see that often the truth really does set us free.
—Review by Darrel Manson
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film pdf
—Spiritual Connections
Everything about The Machinist is designed to creep you out --the blue lighting, the music full of reeds and strings (and a bit of theremin) reminiscent of 50s horror films, and, most of all, the skeletal Christian Bale, who is said to have lost sixty-five pounds for the film. All of this sets the mood for a psychological thriller.Trevor Reznik has been awake for the past year. He's been suffering severe insomnia. He spends the nights scrubbing his floor with a toothbrush and bleach, visiting his prostitute girlfriend, or sitting in an airport diner drinking coffee and talking to the friendly waitress. During the day he works as a machinist on an assembly line where he gets along with the workers, but angers his supervisor.
The trouble with such sleep deprivation is that it can lead to paranoia, hallucinations, and other mental problems. All this lack of sleep is taking its toll on Trevor. Accidents happen, or are they accidents? Notes with a game of hangman start appearing on Trevor's refrigerator. As we watch the film, we begin to wonder just what is, and what isn't, real.The Machinist is a bit like crossing a Hitchcock film with The Twilight Zone. It has the kind of overwhelming mood that Hitchcock was so adept at producing. It also has the kind of discovery as we come to the end that made The Twilight Zone so popular. As Trevor struggles to understand the things that seem to be happening to him, he eventually needs to struggle to understand himself.
One of the problems with trying to review psychological thrillers is that by their nature, you can’t say much about them without giving away the twists and turns that make them so intriguing. And although I think many people will readily figure out what is happening, it is the “why things are happening like this� that makes for the mystery.
In the end, we get a glimpse into some important questions about life. We think about how one deals with guilt. We think about the power of confession to set us free. We think about the way we try to hide from our problems, but know that the more we hide, the more powerful those problems become.
The Machinist is an excursion into the darkness that can overwhelm people. As the truth of the story is revealed, we discover that the truth may be the way out of the darkness. It is then we see that often the truth really does set us free.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home