November 27, 2000

10:43 AM

With all the recent MeFi Flash-trashing and usability-ranting in mind, I am just now getting around to the viewing the website for Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream (Flash required). Aronofsky defends the site in a brief interview with the online version of print mag Entertainment Weekly. It certainly could be classified as annoying, but then, that appears to be Aronofsky's point. Coming from anyone less talented than he, I'd say it was just posturing; here, I'm not sure...
posted by m.polo (5 comments total)

Ohh yes, it's very much like myst, if I tried to run it on a toaster. I couldn't move my mouse, ctrl+alt+del. same for the mac. I don't know.
posted by tiaka at 10:54 AM on November 27, 2000

I love it. Granted, I wasn't surfing over to get information on the movie, but then again, how much of a role do movie promo sites really play in dishing out information as opposed to an impression.

My overly simplistic analysis is that:

1. The site does things that are clearly not possible without Flash.
2. Those things are worth doing.
3. The site does things that violate usability rules pretty blatantly.
4. That violation is part of the point. And worth doing.

This is not a site whose designers were seduced by technology or couldn't figure out how to make a usable site. This site is the way it is as a result of deliberate, and I think very justifiable, choices.
posted by grimmelm at 11:59 AM on November 27, 2000

I stopped by the site a few months ago and spent a good 25 minutes thoroughly enjoying every minute of the surreal display. Plus, it made the movie seem intriguing, whereupon otherwise it might have passed right under my moviegoing radar. Seems to me like that's an effective piece of marketing, and a helluva lot more aesthetically interesting than, say, the stuff I saw for The Blair Witch Project, which wasn't bad (for its time?), but doesn't even compare to the Requiem site.
posted by evixir at 1:24 PM on November 27, 2000

That site is amazing, not only is it totally engaging, it's 100% appropriate to the movie itself.

Usability has it's place, but there are also times when it is not the ultimate important thing, and I honesly think that anyone who looks at that site and whose first thought is "wow, they use flash, what a no-no! I bet they don't have their links colored right!" is missing the whole point, and probably a bit too usability-obsessed. It's like saying "Superbad.com is really hard to navigate around, they should have better labeled links!".
posted by beefula at 1:57 PM on November 27, 2000

Has anyone seen the movie itself yet? I am very curious as to how the site & the film tie together. I am very intrigued by the site, but I'd have seen the movie anyway--Pi was breathtaking.


posted by thc at 5:41 PM on November 27, 2000