Trainspotting

The year is 1996, and the media has caused shock-controversy by claiming that Danny Boyle’s masterwork glamorises drugs. A bold statement considering the fact inTrainspotting the following happens:A drug-addict’s relationship is ruined and eventually dies, another addict drops a literal ‘bomb shell’ in a one-night-stand’s bed, a 14 year-old girl has sex with an adult, a baby dies due to being neglected, several punch-ups occur, a girl is glassed in the face with a pint-glass, men are hit with pool cues, people experience frightening hallucinations, and even after the baby dies, the addicts have to cope with the pain by shooting up again because they’re so dependent on heroine.

The opening speech for example, Renton talks about all of the mundane aspects of life in an acidically funny list: “Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television…” – and at the end of the speech he juxtaposes all of this with: “Why would I want to do a thing like that. I chose not to choose life, but chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroine?” Here is the crux of the film: choose life or choose heroine? Which one can you get the most amount of pleasure from? And which one gives you more harm? The film refuses to answer, and merely presents the viewer with the situation. The beginning section of the movie uses fast paced camera movements and slick and inventive editing (“the worst toilet in Scotland” is dubbed over the toilet door) to match the indescribable, hyper-orgasmic feeling of being high on heroine. We are essentially posed the question of whether we would choose heroine, and the “choose life” monologue is directly asked to us, the viewer.
Here we see how the film is subtly mocking societies obsession with male/female roles and stereotypes in and out of relationships.Overall, Trainspotting presents heroine as it is. It’s not for or against it, as Trainspotting, in my opinion,  is about choosing life or not choosing life.


Another interesting aspect of Trainspotting is its love for pop-culture – and humorously blending pop-culture-induced dialogue in scenes where characters are injecting themselves with the hyper-orgasm-inducing drug known as heroine. Trainspotting will momentarily pause from the drugs and the violence to make a James Bond reference or an innuendo, if anything, that’s not just funny, but utterly refreshing. The great thing about Trainspotting is the sheer sense of speed it has, its narrative drives forward at a rapid pace – the opening sequence is a great example of this, as is the section where each individual character goes out looking for a one-night-stand: we intercut from one couple to the next, and so on – all of the dialogue links up in a slickly stylish manner. For example, Spud is talking about how his balls ‘feel like watermelons’, and we intercut between that and a bathroom scene with his girlfriend where she discusses how hilarious it is to her to starve her husband of sex. To add to this, when the girls and the boys meet up and they tell each other what they’ve been talking about they lie with stereotypical answers. 


Source: Starreviews.wordpress.com