I finally watched Trainspotting last week for the first time. Everyone else in my family had seen it years ago, and I figured I was just about the only person I knew who hadn’t. Turns out I was wrong; although popular among some groups, this is not exactly a mainstream movie. It is edgy, funny, hip, engrossing, disturbing, and a classic of its genre. Actually I'm not sure how to define that genre. There are not a lot of movies about junkies really; perhaps not enough to categorize in that way. Anyway, I haven't seen that many. Still, it’s a classic – nominated for an Oscar, considered one of the better British films of the last twenty years.
Trainspotting is about a group of disaffected working-class youth in Edinburgh Scotland, most of whom have turned away from life, hope and aspiration and turned to heroin instead. The narrator and central figure is Mark "Rent Boy" Renton, played by a young Ewan McGregor in a breakout role (but check him out in 1994's Shallow Grave, as well). As a narrator, Rent Boy is witty, ironic, and wise; but as a character in his own life, he is a fuck-up. After all, he is a heroin addict. Why? He explains: "People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shit which is not to be ignored, but what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it." So that’s one reason. The claustrophobia of working class life in an economically depressed Edinburgh might be another.
Why is this a “classic” movie? A collage of other reviewer’s comments gives a flavor:
Exuberant and pitiless, profane yet eloquent, flush with the ability to create laughter out of unspeakable situations, "Trainspotting" is a drop-dead look at a dead-end lifestyle that has all the strength of its considerable contradictions.[1]
Trainspotting is a singular sensation, a visionary knockout spiked with insight, wild invention and outrageous wit.[2]
It's as if Boyle entered the mind of a junkie, ripped out the catacombs of hallucination and poured them whole onto celluloid.[3]
The experience of watching Trainspotting -- the electric, nasty and slick descent into the milieu of young Scottish junkies -- is a little like speeding through the digestive tract of some voracious beast.[4]
Put simply, Trainspotting is one of those films that gets the mixture just right. The dialogue, the music, the performances, the direction, the production values, the humor, the shock-value.[5]
I agree. And much of the credit goes to the Director Danny Boyle, whose other eclectic credits include Shallow Grave (1994), 28 Days later (2002),Slumdog Millionaire (2008), and 127 hours (2010). Perhaps most interesting is Boyle’s ability, with able assistance from cinematographer Brian Tufano, to capture the feeling, the experience of a narcotic rush via filmic technique: evocative camera angles and sound design, matched to credible acting and narrative. The needle goes in, the addict swoons backward, the world telescopes away, the tone of the music shifts, etc. Another remarkable scene brings us into the room with Rent Boy as he experiences cold-turkey withdrawal. A perfect blending of photographic craft, great acting, hallucinatory images and eerily altered sound gives the viewer a convincing sense of being in that room.
I liked this picture even though I could only actually make out about 25% of the dialogue between the deadbeats populating this picture. In fact, I kept marveling to myself along the way how cool it was that it held my interested even though I often didn’t get w-t-f they were saying. Didn’t seem to matter. And, amazingly, afterwards, when I perused some of the more memorable quotes from the movie on IMDB , I recalled hearing them. You do hear the important stuff. It also helped that Trainspotting not only features the Ewan McGregor character, but is narrated by him, and the narration is easy to get.
McGregor is not his usual cute, dimply self here, but a somewhat emaciated, convincing disaffected addict. The rest of the ensemble holds it own as well. Particularly riveting is Robert Carlyle, as a violent sociopath with, let’s say, an anger management problem . And there was the young Kevin McKidd as Tommy, almost unrecognizeable from the role I associate him with: Lucius Vorenus in Rome. Kelly McDonald is a nice relief from the drear, as the girl.
Watch Trainspotting. It’ll stick with you for awhile.
