Likely spoilers.
Yeah so I have always been a pretty big fan of Christian Bale as an actor, which probably is not surprising. The guy is mega famous and has been in a ton of movies. My best memory as a kid was coming home from summer camp and my mom immediately taking me to see 'The Dark Knight'. I just had a great two weeks of summer camp and then I immediately saw that virtually flawless film I mean just thinking about those days makes me immensely happy. One of the greatest times of my life ever. Dang.
What a run by bale. 'The Machinist' followed by, in my opinion, the greatest superhero trilogy ever. Crazy!
The Machinist was really executed brilliantly. The shots of Bale looking insanely skinny always sort of creeped me out. Due to those images I assumed this movie would be kind of overly artsy and maybe it would take itself too seriously. But 'The Machinist' was actually pretty vulnerable and felt sadly realistic.
Much of the movie made little to no sense to me, until the ending. It's nice when a mindbender of a film doesn't have an open ended, vague ending. Honestly the ending was brilliant.
The ending made the whole experience super intense and tragic. All of Trevor's experiences make total sense. His lack of sleep over his terrible mistake creates just a whirlwind of more sadness and suffering.
His memory is so fragmented that he's just lost in a world of chaos. He seems to want to actively forget his crime, but his guilt just seems to keep on pushing itself to the surface. The bits and pieces of his act poke out in just a tornado of randomness, but also not so random in the end. I found this profoundly, grimly realistic and kind of jarring.
I'm still unsure if ANY of the events in the entire movie even happened! Crazy.
I am no expert in like analyzing stories or their true meanings but, I get the feeling that Trevor was actually kind of a good person. Obviously he made some massive massive inexcusable mistakes but I don't sense him to be truly sinister. Maybe I'm wrong and I'm just terrible for thinking this LOL. I dunno.
There were rare moments of clarity. When he laughed and connected with that woman he would see from time to time, when he remembered fond memories with his own mom, when even his co workers said he 'used to be alright' and Trevor would retort with his own funny insult.
In the end he did FINALLY face his own actions and turn himself in which, yeah it's pretty shameful it took him so long but he did finally do it. I honestly couldn't help but feel a bit happy for him when he finally slept at the very end. Simply the way this crime tortured Trevor to such an insane extent shows me that he is not like an awful person.
I'd be curious to see a sequel but, I can't really imagine how this story would really continue.
There's a ton of lessons that can be learned and yes, even some abstract poetic type of 'up for interpretation' moments in 'The Machinist' but I found the movie highly entertaining. Just a really well done film all around. Bale killed it!!
Humans are definitely social creatures and this kind of also shows how much humans care. Sure Trevor was quite selfish in many ways, but clearly a part of him didn't want to be, a part of him knew it wasn't natural to just run away from this situation. Pure fear and guilt. Tough man.
Definitely a movie I won't forget.
Who are you? DEEP man!!! Mega thought provoking. Movies like this make me actually respect actors a bit LOL.
9.1/10 for whatever that's worth LOL. Def recommend watching!
