Christian Bale lost 63 pounds for this movie & was a mere 54 Kg during filming of this movie (who says I'm thin? Just take a look at him in this movie. In one scene you can actually see all of his ribs which is creepy & cool at the same time)
The Machinist can be categorized as a thriller, a Psychological Thriller to be precise. Some great movies of this genre are Fight Club, The Jacket, Memento, though all these fall under many different genres too and are not just Psychological Thrillers.
If at this point you haven't watched the movie, I suggest that you go and watch it right now. If you have, please continue.
So, the plot follows a Machinist named Trevor Reznik who is so thin that "If he were any thinner, he wouldn't exist." Why is he thin? because he hasn't slept for over an year now. What is the longest you haven't slept for?
Slowly, he begins to doubt his sanity as increasingly bizarre things start happening at work and at home. Haunted by a deformed co-worker who no one seems to think exists, and an ongoing stream of indecipherable Post-It notes he keeps finding on his fridge, he attempts to investigate what appears to be a mysterious plot against him.
While watching the movie I thought maybe this is all a dream that the main character is having, maybe he is in a coma or something. I was close enough.
At the end of the movie we come to know that Trevor had run over a kid while driving his car and had sped away without even trying to help the kid. When Trevor is run over by a car, later Stevie curses the "damn hit-and-run drivers"
1. Trevor is distracted by a co-worker Ivan (whom no one else sees) and leads to an accident that costs Miller his arm.
Miller says to Reznik, "I need a hand." About a minute and a half later, Miller loses his hand in machine.
2. Trevor seems afraid to touch the car cigarette lighter, this behavior is repeated several times.
3. The game of hangman is all along pointing to Killer not Mother or Miller
4. The ride 'Route 666' almost causes the boy to 'die'
'Route 666' Loudspeaker: You're going straight to Hell on Route 666!
5. Trever gets hit by a car, and Stevie says "Damn these hit-and-run" drivers
6. Trevor reports Ivan's car plate number as 743CRN, the reverse of Trevor's number - NRC347, and the Police officer says that the car was totaled an year ago.
7. Ivan does not exist as pointed out by Stevie & the non-existent body in the carpet.
8. Also,The time of 1:30 AM is significant throughout the movie. This is the time when th hit-and-run took place.
Every interaction he has had with Maria, Nicholas, Stevie and Ivan has been fictional, a hallucination brought on by extreme insomnia and repressed guilt. Finally, Trevor arrives at the police station, escorted by an encouraging but silent Ivan, to confess to his crime and at long last falls asleep in a holding cell.
I am sure everyone has been able to come up to these conclusions on their own. Now here's the real catch.
Trevor is dead. He has been dead for an year now. He is dead but not free. He is in purgatory, still unable to come to terms with the crime he committed, trying to erase it from his memory, trying to forget about the incident.
His car was totaled an year ago. During the ride 'Route 666' a red car was seen for a brief moment, the car was totaled & the passenger was dead, his internals strewn all over the road.
The car is seen entering bright white light on exiting the tunnel. He comes close to having an accident several times during the movie indicating that he had in fact been in an accident after the hit-and-run incident and is no more..
BTW "Reznik" means "butcher" in Czech language.
well to be frank u got good observation there(or good imdb skills whatever....)giving a full 8 points of insight into the movie plain as facts. But abt the controversial theory of urs that its all a after death experience, again to be frank I don't buy it fr a rat's ass......(no offence if u made it up). There r 3 reasons fr this....
ReplyDelete1)if he is actually in purgatory all this time y does he suddenly starts contradicting himself(eg. with the airport waitress not existing at all).Also to assist this notion i want to bring to your kind notice that he feels pain like all mortals(in the hit and run case in which he was the victim)
2)If all u say is true then there is no significance of the arm incident in his "liberation from purgatory theroy"(so to say). Then does the director just wants to divert the viewers minds by highlighting the event.
3)Now here's something amir khan said after seeing Momento(maybe u might not agree with this)....."A movie is not good if at the end of the show one has to go and look out thru the web for the explanations". Same here may be u(or the www) r a smart a** in figuring out what was on the director's and scriptwriter's mind but the fact remains that the movie looses its charm if the plot dosen't revel itself in the movie itself.
My best guess is that due to lack of sleep he starts seeing things and his guilt guides him thru the story.
thats all frm me(hope u enjoyed my comment)
I would like to offer some more explanation.
ReplyDelete1)if he is actually in purgatory all this time y does he suddenly starts contradicting himself
Maybe it was because of his denial that he had done something wrong and it is a punishment for someone to admit his mistake.
2)If all u say is true then there is no significance of the arm incident
Here's what the director has to say:-
"SC: The character of Ivan was a manifestation of Trevor’s guilt but what, if any, was the significance of the toe?
BA: That is more of a Scott Kosar grotesque kind of thing. He’s making this guy into some kind of a freak. There’s one shot, and it’s subtle, when Trevor is in the interrogation room and he is giving his deposition after the accident they show him some photos of the accident scene. In one of the photos is Miller’s hand. The hand looks like Ivan’s hand; it’s missing two fingers so it looks like a claw. The idea that somehow in Trevor’s delusional mind when he conjures up Ivan he kind of is tapping into images that he is already conscious of. The awful image of Miller’s cut off hand and other things. Also, at one point in the movie there was a strange crab motif (laughs) Scott had woven through the story images of fighting crabs. I think he was trying to make the insinuation that Ivan was some kind of monstrous crab. But it was sort of vestige of an earlier idea. "
3)Now here's something amir khan said after seeing Momento(maybe u might not agree with this)....."A movie is not good if at the end of the show one has to go and look out thru the web for the explanations".
Look how he fked Memento up by making Ghajini, And even though we all understood ghajini after one viewing we all hate it for what he did to Memento.
Plus, how do you explain the toppled red car with an accident victim on the ride Route 666 & What is the white light every time Trevor exits the tunnel also at one point while following Ivan through the same tunnel he had a near accident at the same point where white light is used in other scenes.
I agree with you 100%, I came away from the cinema thinking he was dead, though the three friends who saw it with me didn't agree with me. Most people seem to think that the idea is a stretch, and I guess I could be biased since I love Jacob's Ladder, Stay, and other similar films. But I definitely saw a lot of symbolism and signs pointing towards him being dead.
ReplyDelete