"The Machinist" is a 2004 psychological thriller film directed by Brad Anderson. The movie earned five awards: best actor, audience award, best original music, best cinematographer, and best film. Christian Bale's meticulous preparation for filming only increased the demand for the movie, and the script itself is mesmerizing.
What the movie is about
Trevor Reznik is a simple factory worker who has been suffering from insomnia and visual hallucinations for a year. Tormented by guilt, he unconsciously tries to "wash himself" from the story that caused it - constantly washes his hands, cleans everything with bleach... Trevor Reznik absorbed deep guilt from Dostoevsky's works: "The Idiot", "Crime and Punishment", "The Double". There is even a scene in the movie where he reads "Crime and Punishment" while lying on his couch.
He is a kind and sympathetic person, always fair to others. He has nothing to reproach and lives an ordinary, self-sufficient life. But the accident makes him a frightened and confused little child who does not know what to do now. Finding freedom and forgiveness is filled with a sense of trauma, and the iconic things and details lodged in the hero's subconscious constantly resurface and lead to a change in the logic and time of the movie.
Gradually, every detail in the picture takes on meaning, linking the individual elements together. The key to unlocking his own secret lies in the game of "hangman" - only one word separates him from the answer to the question he himself asked, and losing the game means his own demise. The person with whom he is playing the hangman game is himself, his alter ego, who remembers everything and longs to regain his memories.
The hero's relationship with his inner self takes the form of schizoid hallucinations, paranoia, and a constant dialog with himself. Reznik tries to paralyze himself so that he no longer has the opportunity to think about what happened. Going deep into himself, he distances himself from society and becomes a loner.
A movie of one actor?
Most of those who watched the picture attribute all the credit to Christian Bale, whose acting makes the audience stay in suspense throughout the movie. Following a brutal diet for four months, he lost 54 kilograms. The actor constantly worked out the script in his mind, he prepared for the movie physically and emotionally.
Is it worth watching?
If you like psychological thrillers in which you have to assemble disparate elements into a unified picture, you will definitely like this movie. Styled with black and white backgrounds, psychopathic, it forces your imagination to complete the grim picture on its own.
