also watch Lilya-4-ever
For my money it's certainly not the best film ever, it's pretty good. Take something like Trainspotting, please yeah, trainspotting is funny, more emotional (for me, obviously this is an area of contention) - certainly there are more different emotions involved, and has more aspects to it.
While his scar is fairly disgusting, as is the decay of the characters' lives - I didn't feel that any scene touched the dead baby scene of trainspotting.
The character's aren't all that strong (compare to something like midnight cowboy, even motherfucking Human Traffic).
"requiem for a dream" - a song/tribute for dead dreams?
for me the themes of this film were:
a. addiction
b. decay
I found it quite interesting that a film could deliver a powerful inspirational note (for me, a warning at least) through the depiction of negative events.
It gave me a kick on the arse and along with some other things has been telling me not to let mundanity, or staleness take over your life. If you continue to follow the path of addiction then the high (whatever it is) will go bad and you will decay into a less and less living person.
Note that the mum still got a smile on her face at the end whenever she saw that tv show... but she was a wreck. The mum also gave herself a positive evaluation only through being on tv, that would "make her somebody", mean that she had done something; though really it means nothing of the sort.
As this is a work of art the maker(s) of the film must feel that it is worthwhile to make works of art. This is slightly the opposite of decay, it is creation. That's just a connection, I don't think it's intended or strong.
This film gives a reason to be bothered