Just watched The Machinist for I think the fourth time since its 2004 release. A nightmare of a movie featuring a truly remarkable performance from Christian Bale, who starved himself skeletal to play Trevor Reznik, an industrial lathe operator who hasn’t slept for a year.
Mentally unravelling via an unending clamour of paranoid/psychotic delusions, haunted by a man whose fingers have been replaced by two toes following an industrial accident, and a series of weird Post-It notes left around his shabby apartment (slightly a la Memento), Reznik shifts by anguished degrees towards resolution as he struggles to disinter the reasons behind his chronic insomnia.
It’s not an easy movie and occasionally veers just a little over the top in its study of existential torment, but it’s powerful and persuasive, and the reveal may break you into pieces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAhBZXw1Kak
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