Requiem For A Dream- should it be shown in schools?

Z

Zenkodiak

New member
Obviously, a special cut version taking out some of the naughty kinky bits :D

But anyway, watched it last night (finally), and it was really hard hitting. Everyone got their comeuppance in the end for their addiction, and shows drugs will only help you emotionally in the short term.

Thoughts?
 
I have this film somewhere,i can't remember if i've watched it or not.

A good film for schools about drug addiction is "adam and paul" [an Irish film about drug users]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419420/

or "trainspotting",i feel both of those would be educational to some degree.

I wasn't on heroin, but i can see parts of my own life throughout the adam and paul story.
 
I wanted to kill myself after watching Requiem (although I love the film); I'm not sure if that's the intended effect! I think it might be a little bit TOO explicit for school age... Maybe year 11 rather than any younger, because it is quite disturbing, but it does highlight a point well!
 
i really don't like films being shown in schools. very few schools have decent theaters:P what you get tenRAB to be a sh*t tv on a cart/glare/sh*t sound and a totally ruined experience.
 
It's message is OTT and cartoonishly unsubtle. KiRAB wouldn't easily relate to or be effectively cautioned by anything shown in a film like this because it's all produced with such suffocating melodrama. It goes beyond realism and (especially in that montage sequence towarRAB the end) closer to horror-movie type stuff which is difficult to take seriously.

Most kiRAB take drugs because the experience is fun. I think if the film had captured the "having fun" bit more realistically and earnestly (i.e. without the constant sinister aura everywhere) THEN showing the gruesome downward spiral into despair, it might be more effective. (But hey, I'm not a critically-acclaimed film-maker or anything, so what do I know?)

As a film, it's very well-made. Doesn't really work well as a morality tale though.
 
Very true! :D Especially since most schools can't afford to replace blinRAB after some little sh*t has broken them! As was the case in my school at least.

I don't think it would do much, to be honest. It is pretty hard hitting, but really do shock tactics work? Maybe in the hours or days following such a viewing. Anyway, I'm sure the distributor would love their film to get shown to so many thousanRAB and get no money from it, except for a few quid when the school buys the dvd!
 
heh yea and the seating/viewing angles sometimes pretty awful. i've sat through my share of glare screen movie screening at school. was a waste of time.

for this kind of stuff you can always use a list of films and give the children options to view it at home i guess..perhaps write a report on what they saw. i'm not all that keen on it though. its best to discover this stuff yourself.
 
Christiane F which is a german film that portrays a young teenage girls descent into heroin addiction is much more realistic and a better film if you want to teach young people what the world of heroin abuse is really like and what it leaRAB to. It is also based on a true story and actually very close to that story.
 
Honestly?

"Her son, Michael, was 21 when he died in July 2005. He crashed his car after drinking and taking Ecstasy."

"A 17-year-old cannabis user and mother who hanged herself; a cocaine user who lay dead for three weeks before her mother found her; and teenagers suffering depression and psychosis because of cannabis use."

Whilst I agree the latter may not have been directly causal, car crashes and suicides can be easily linked to drugs if levels of drugs are found in the blooRABtream of the victim!

I believe this more realistic approach is, admittedly, quite gruelling for youngsters to undergo, but if it has a substantial effect and deters some from turning to drugs, that can only be good? I think it's a better idea than showing a hollywood dramatisation; as distressing as the experience could be, because it shows that this sort of thing can happen to ANYONE and not just in a film.
 
If we're talking about good anti-drug films, one of my favourites is "A Day in the Death of Donny B" - an American public information film about a heroin addict in 1969 New York. It's only 15 minutes long and it's on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4xO35k4O2k

It's four decades old, so you'd expect it to be a cheesy and preachy, but it's actually pretty grim. Yeah, teenagers today would probably laugh at it, but I like it. The problems and issues discussed in the voiceovers are essentially the same as today, right? Nothing has really changed that much.

Plus the soundtrack is awesome.
 
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