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Rating: We Never Sleep...
You're there in your bed, staring at the ceiling waiting for it to arrive. You turn, you toss, seeking the coolness of the pillow, looking for more comfortable positions.
Sleep, sometimes, can be the only desired guest that is late to arrive. And the more you wait for it, the more it seems to mock you. The clock is its sinister ally: hours pass by slowly only to speed up suddenly as dawn approaches, when it is there, cursed, ready to make its triumphant entrance.
You try to get up, watch some television, read something, but the mind is like a raging river, the more you try to fall asleep the more your eyes seem open like those of an addict in withdrawal.
And when they finally close, when the mind with its thoughts abandons you... well... then it's time for another day to begin, with its worries, with its problems, with its dilemmas.
Another night without sleep, another day as a ghost of yourself.
Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) is a walking specter: for over a year he hasn't slept, he's visibly losing weight, his performance at work has terribly declined. The lack of sleep causes him hallucinations, he becomes a pariah, shunned by everyone. Strange ominous signs begin to appear: mysterious post-its left on the fridge by an unknown hand; the sermons of his colleague Ivan; a constant feeling of being hunted, subjected to schemes.
The only comfort is his lover/prostitute Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and the waitress of a night bar, Marie (Aitana Sanchez Gijon).
He lacks the sleep of the just...
Fat, sooty factories. Lead-colored skies. Dark streets like Trevor's mind. These are the settings for this Spanish production directed by Brad Anderson. Christian Bale, to fit into the meager shoes of Trevor Reznik, will put his health to the test, losing over 30 kg in a few months, on a nightmare diet of apples and cans of tuna.
Trevor's descent, his step-by-step approach to the terrible truth, is narrated slowly, as slow as the passing of the insomniac's night. In his mind, there is a completely empty zone, an unknown place where what one doesn't want to see resides, what cannot be believed. Trevor regains a glimmer of his consciousness, confusing the real and the unreal, certainty with hallucination. He fights a battle already lost against his phantom self.
"The Machinist" is part of that cinematic genre whose cornerstones are Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense," David Cronenberg's "Spider," and Fincher's "Fight Club," known as the psychological or metaphysical thriller.
Anderson's ghosts are not supernatural entities but dwell in the subconscious of the unfortunate protagonist, and they will take over in the thrilling finale that reverses the interpretative reading of the film.
Though not free from flaws, such as the frequent references to the aforementioned works, Anderson's film is characterized by a naturally slow but not redundant narrative rhythm. Scott Kosar's excellent screenplay depicts Trevor Reznik as a victim of himself, impossible to redeem, while the camerawork accentuates its claustrophobic nature with almost exclusive use of gray and black.
In the mazes of the human psyche. Self-flagellation for atonement...
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