Trevor Reznick is panicky,
he’s uncomfortable in whatever skin he has left on his bones, and he’s
totally breathtaking. I could not take my eyes off him for one moment.
Maybe it was the morbid fascination with how someone alive could be that
skinny, but it was also the fact that he couldn’t stand still, but yet
he wasn’t really going anywhere.
Christian Bale has morphed
into the ultimate insomniac. Whilst watching the film, I wondered whether
the dark circles under his eyes were make-up or if they were actually real.
The Machinist is one of the most troubling films I’ve seen all year. Not
only does it confront the trauma, anxiety and paranoia of Trevor, but it
engenders these conditions in the audience. There are some shocking scenes
and an absolutely terrifying Exorcist-esque sequence in a fairground
fun-house. My eyes were glued to the screen and my heart was pounding from
the very beginning.
The film allows the audience
to live through Trevor’s eyes, and they are tired and veiled and worried.
We notice various repetitions throughout the film which raise red flags
in our minds, but we dismiss our concerns as we hungrily consume the
film, waiting and worrying what Trevor will do next. Bale gives a shiver-inducing
performance and must not go uncredited for his skeletal stage-(lack-of-)presence.
In a film where he plays the protagonist, it is astounding how ghost-like
and shadowy he is. The Machinist explores the aftermath of trauma
in a realistic way; exploring the fragmentation and fragility of the human
mind through an equally fragile and fragmented human being.
