"The Machinist" (2004) Directed by Brad Anderson

"It’s 1.30am and I have a confession to make. It’s always 1.30am when you haven’t slept for what seems like an entire year and someone is messing with your mind by leaving post-it notes on your refrigerator. Maybe I need some sleep but in all probability I won’t be able to as there’s duplicity in the air, a riddle I can’t solve, and I have a confession to make. Even the confession itself may be a trick of my own imagination or the salve repeatedly placed over an open wound and memories I’m desperate to forget. Who knows? All I do know is it’s 1.30am, it’s always 1.30am, and I have a confession from a dangerous mind that may or may not be as true as those post-it notes you keep leaving for me in a house that it’s crumbling around a shattering mind.

As I’ve traversed the rocky road of life, whenever someone, anyone, be it a current love of my life, a mate, a lifelong friend or passing ship in a sleepless night has asked me whether or not I’ve seen The Machinist, my stock answer has always been that yes I have and it’s an incredible film with a skeletal, anxiety inducing performance from Christian Bale. That much is true. Kind of. For I have seen this film before but not for many a sleepless decade and so I hadn’t bargained for how unsettling and horrifying this film truly is. You know what’s coming, it’s just that you have to go through a paranoid panic attack to get there. The film poster above connects the dots from David Fincher’s Fight Club through to Christopher Nolan’s impeccable Memento. High praise indeed for two films I’m already obsessed with and I have no doubt whatsoever that there will be an insomniac reading this in some faraway future who will revere this film as I do the two masterpieces noted above, or the other immediate film that struck me on this evening’s re-watch, Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys. Maybe it’s just that one, repeated, heart breaking scene and maybe it’s the trick of the mind at 1.30am and the memories of a tortured soul that may never find some peace or the relief of some restful sleep".

The above is a brief extract from the beginning of my spoiler free film review for 2004's "The Machinist" which I penned and published to my Medium blog site on 11th July 2023 and which is reproduced in full below:

https://medium.com/@stephenblackford561/the-machinist-2004-2c7211280bc1

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