The driver: a year without sleep

Christian Bale doesn’t seem to care too much about physical changes. Last year he surprised us by gaining weight to put himself in Dick Cheney’s shoes in The vice of power. But this was not the first time that Bale underwent a drastic change of image, in 2004 and with the help of filmmaker Brad Anderson, he appeared in cinemas The Machinist, a thriller psychological in which Bale was not only unrecognizable, but managed to disgust a good part of the public.

The extreme thinness that Trevor Reznik’s character required made the audience extremely uncomfortable. That physical appearance, in reality, was nothing more than a reflection of the tormented interior of the main character of the film. A film in which everything revolves around Reznik, a mystery or conspiracy against him. To a life with which the viewer does not know whether to empathize or distance himself.

Trevor works as an operator in a factory and has not been able to sleep for a year. He is a character that is difficult to approach and produces a lot of rejection in both the viewer and his work environment. After a serious accident at the factory, Trevor’s life will take an unexpected turn that will lead the protagonist down a hostile path between sanity and madness..

The Machinist It is a film that delves deeply into the psyche of its protagonist, which little by little will reveal to us why it is so strange, Why haven’t you been able to sleep for a year…

In this article, we will try not to do spoilers in case you haven’t seen the movie, but it’s possible that we’ll reveal some little secrets about the plot.

What happens to the protagonist?

This is the question that haunts the viewer’s mind. We are used to empathizing with characters, to having them awaken a certain interest in us, whether they are good or bad. It’s not that Trevor Reznik doesn’t arouse interest, it’s that we don’t know if we want his plans to come to fruition or not, We don’t know whether to trust him.

From the first minutes of footage, we see a man absolutely deteriorated physically,His extreme thinness and lack of sleep draw a cadaverous face that clearly indicates some problem. It won’t take us long to realize that something is wrong with Trevor; that the lack of sleep has taken its toll on him, but we don’t know what prevents him from falling asleep. And in that doubt lies the magic of The Machinist.

In tone of thriller which, at times, ends up embracing terror, the viewer is carried away by an uncomfortable, dark and tragic narrative in which the pieces of the puzzle seem diffuse.

We don’t know if Ivan, the new operator who torments Trevor, is real or a product of his imagination; Nor do we fully understand his relationship with the two women who mark his life: Maria, a waitress, and Stevie, a prostitute with whom Trevor has a close relationship. Has he always known them? Do you feel sorry for Trevor?

We know little or nothing about his past and, although the film starts with a final scene, the narration gradually gives us clues.. It is true that the fact that a hangman game appears on your refrigerator makes credibility a little difficult, but it is effective in increasing interest. Trevor is finding post-its in his apartment with said game and he will try to complete them.

The viewer will not take long to speculate and think that all the problems that appear in the protagonist’s life derive from his insomnia.. Something goes wrong, something fails, and some kind of deep problem affects Trevor emotionally, but we can’t figure out what it is. How did he get here? Has he always suffered from insomnia, has he always been a tormented man?

The movie doesn’t give too many clues, although It is not difficult to figure out that some traumatic episode has led to this strange behavior..

The key is in the staging

At all times, The film moves in a monochrome environment, cold, gray and blue tones permeate the screen. Somehow, these colors evoke a certain feeling of distrust, anguish and discomfort in the viewer. They are not bright greens, but cloudy, like the color we associate with stagnant waters. The representation of green tones awakens in us a feeling of rejection, betrayal or manipulation.

In a way, that dull, grayish and dirty green tone corresponds to the truth of Trevor, with a mental manipulation to which he is being subjected, although we do not know where it comes from. We cannot understand if it is Iván, one of his friends or the character himself who is putting pressure on his mind..

The same happens with the blue tones, a constant throughout the film, because far from seeing a bright blue, we observe a murky blue that evokes the dreamlike, the world of dreams, that world that Trevor is unable to reach.

Blue can be interpreted as a deception of the senses, as falsehood due to its own connection with dreams. In this sense, what we are seeing is not entirely real, but rather a kind of mirage of reality.

Illusionary, murky and uncomfortable colors draw the scenario through which a strange, taciturn character full of mysteries moves. Likewise, the night takes on special importance and so does the work environment, an environment that is presented as hostile and too mechanical. All these negative connotations in the visual accentuate the intrigue of the film, serve as another element in the narrative and provide sensations to the viewer.

Likewise, it will not take long for us to realize that Trevor’s mind often plays tricks on him. Between forgetfulness and deceptive visions, he finds himself involved in a persecution, in a struggle with his own self.. At this point, we have to wonder if the key lies in post-traumatic stress disorder, if Trevor is actually a victim of himself, of that past that we don’t know about and of some fact that prevents him from falling asleep.

The driver, terror is in the mind

As we have been pointing out, The most creepy thing about the film is the protagonist himself and the strange events that take place in his apartment following the accident at the factory.. Our gaze maintains, at all times, uncertainty; We doubt the protagonist and, at the same time, we want to discover something positive in him. We do not know the origin of the problems surrounding Trevor.

Everything seems to point in the same direction: the human mind, its fragility. Far from believing in strange conspiracies, we adopt a position that points to the protagonist’s mind as the culprit.

To some extent, we have all suffered at some point from the problems that come with a sleepless night and, in this sense, We can get the idea of ​​the conflict that spending a year with constant insomnia triggers.

To what extent do our senses deceive us? To what extent can lack of sleep affect us in our daily lives? The viewer will try, at all times, to decipher the keys to the enigma. An enigma that manifests itself in the form of a game of hangman and that Trevor will always fill in in pencil, except when he understands the truth, which he will do with a permanent marker, this being a decisive turn on the path to acceptance and overcoming the problem.

The Machinist appeals to those terrors that are far from the supernatural. The defense mechanisms of the protagonist’s mind interfere in a story that is perceived almost in first person. We see what Trevor sees, what Trevor feels and, although we distrust, it is the only truth we have before our eyes.

The Machinist It is a film that draws on works like The double (1846) by Dostoyevsky and films such as The chimerical tenant (1976) by Roman Polanski.

In short, we are looking at a film that adopts, in terms of thriller, a terrifying story in which everything revolves around a human being and his mind, his psyche. The film does not leave us indifferent and, Although it effectively solves the problem, it causes doubt and confusion in the viewer..

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