Requiem For a Dream
http://www.requiemforadream.com
As enigmatic as it is extraordinary, the official site for Requiem For a Dream, the new movie by * director Darren Aranofsky, is a visual and aural feast for the eyes and ears. A graphic labyrinth that leads you astray into false Web sites and constantly toys with your psyche, the Dream site abuses and manipulates the latest Flash technology to its harrowing benefit. Macromedia’s Flash has become the standard for all 21st century Web design and the creators of this stimulating virtual world fully realize this.
For those unaware of the disturbing plotline of Requiem For a Dream, it centers around the lives of three friends and their gripping addiction to heroin. But rather than focus on the glamorization of the drug itself, like Trainspotting did, director Aranofsky has chosen to focus his lens on the addiction and how these characters’ lives ultimately unravel because of it. Represented by Aranofsky’s trademark narrative, repetitious warp-speed filmmaking style, Requiem For a Dream is a frenzied and draining ride through junkie life. The daunting task for the Web designers was translating this onto the ubiquitous metaverse that is the Internet. Many official movie sites dwell in product exploitation and celebrity hype, but Dream easily abandons the old style to invite the listener into a world filled with isolation, ever-changing graphics and scattered audio separated into the four seasons of the year.
Each season dives into stunning geometric patterns that are morphing and evaporating with just the movement of your cursor. Stills from the film appear and evaporate with a simple mouse-over, while HTML code randomly juts out to reveal even more subliminal graphic atmospheres. As long as your eyes, mind and hands can keep up with the frenetic pace of this wonderland, you will witness a highly imaginative world where the desolate colors and Web trickery prevail. Without becoming too ambiguous or revealing too much, the Requiem For a Dream site is an inspiration for every novice and expert of Web design and a treat for the average Web-surfer’s eyes, and one that almost overshadows the film its promoting.
