The machinist
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The machinist |
| Original title | The machinist |
| Country of production | Spain |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2004 |
| length | 98 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Brad Anderson |
| script | Scott Kosar |
| production |
Julio Fernández Carlos Fernández Antonio Nava |
| music | Roque Baños |
| camera |
Xavi Giménez Charlie Jiminez |
| cut | Luis de la Madrid |
| occupation | |
| |
The machinist (alternative title: The Machinist ) is a Spanish psychological thriller from the director Brad Anderson from 2004.
action
Machine worker Trevor Reznik has been suffering from insomnia for about a year and has lost a lot of weight since then. His work colleagues increasingly avoid him, and he only finds peace in the arms of the prostitute Stevie and in the company of the waitress Maria, whose airport café he visits at night.
One day at work, during a break, he meets Ivan, who claims to be a work colleague. A little later Trevor causes an accident at work because he is distracted by Ivan. An employee loses his arm in the process. When Trevor claims to have been distracted by Ivan, his superiors insist that no employee of that name is employed in the entire company.
Trevor's life is becoming increasingly disordered. He tries to remember things to do with little sticky notes that he hangs up in the apartment, but soon he also finds notes with messages that he doesn't understand. The accident caused problems in the company as well. The colleagues see him as a potential danger and make it clear that he is undesirable. When one day he almost lost his arm in an accident, he suspected his colleagues of revenge and was released.
More and more often he meets Ivan, about whom nobody else seems to know. Trevor recognizes the cause of his problems in Ivan and tries to follow him and talk to him.
Trevor now maintains closer contact with Maria and accompanies her to a fairground with her son Nicholas. There Nicholas has an epileptic fit.
After several unsuccessful attempts to confront Ivan, Trevor tries to use his license plate to get Ivan's identity. Trevor is surprised to find that Ivan's car is listed as his own, which he himself deregistered after a total write-off a year ago.
Shortly afterwards, Trevor watches Ivan, accompanied by Nicholas, as he enters his apartment. He follows him, and a fight breaks out between the two of them in the bathroom. Trevor kills Ivan and collapses a little later - he realizes that the displacement of a car accident he caused, in which he killed a young boy and hit the road, triggered his mental disorders. The boy and his desperate mother at the scene of the accident looked like Nicholas and Maria. These two, as well as Ivan, were only a product of his imagination, which explains that the Maria he met before never worked in this café, as he is told on his last visit there.
Trevor then reports himself for a hit and run and asks to finally be allowed to sleep. Ultimately, he can fall asleep in his cell. At the end of the film, Trevor drives into a white light shortly after he hit the road.
Reviews
“A brilliant thriller in which the antihero loses footing on the downward slope into his own self and finds his way back to himself in a classic Freudian way. Only at the end does the impressively staged and acted psychological medical history prove to be too lightweight to cope with the previously spread trauma. "
Trivia
- The name Trevor Reznik is an allusion to Trent Reznor , the founder and singer of the band Nine Inch Nails , whose lyrics were included in the original script. Another feature is the inverted N on the movie poster.
- For the role of Trevor Reznik, Christian Bale deliberately lost almost 30 kilograms, almost a third of his total weight, in order to be able to realistically represent Trevor, who is constantly losing weight.
- Immediately after filming, Christian Bale began a rigorous regimen and weight training session to play the title role in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins .
- During the chase in the subway you can see advertisements for the horror films Rottweiler and The Nun by the distribution and production company FILMAX.
- The film gives the impression of being set in Los Angeles . In reality it was shot exclusively in and near Barcelona . The recurrent thermal power station in Badalona , right on the Mediterranean, is striking .
- While on a chase, Reznik jots down Ivan's license plate, which is a palindrome on his own (Reznik: NRC347 Ivan: 743CRN).
Web links
- The engineer in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The machinist in the online film database
Individual evidence
- ↑ The machinist. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .