"Choose your future. Choose life." The echoing verbosity of the iconic Renton (Ewan McGregor) intonates our liberty of choices from the beginning of the film, such as "Choose as a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines..." and so on. This unforgivably and rudely written film had been inundated with horrible backlash by the public, but unforgivable and rude it was, it never stopped Trainspotting to be an interesting piece of cinema.I sat down, watched this with a keen eye, and got up from my seat thinking that my mum would never like the film. Trainspotting is a kind of film easily misunderstood by the audience for it might be apprehended as a pro-drug campaign; nevertheless defended by Danny Boyle, the director, as a glimpse into the weird and disturbing lives of the addicts. And the conjecture follows if they have really chose life, it's the irony that speaks as they chose drugs, addiction, disease and social alienation instead of the latter. In other words, this is a film about drugs and about living life even though these people feel drowsy, high and incapacitated with sanity just yet.
Narrated by Renton (played by Ewan McGregor in his effortless performance and felt like the modern day James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause), the film takes us into the daily lives and habits of these addicts-and-alcoholics who all seemed to take cocaine, Mary Janes and God-knows-what-else-they-sniff like conventional meals. We see them friends hanging around, running around Edinburgh (whuch suddenly turned the drug capital of the world due to this, in an appalling state), and doing unbelievable things. Apart from Renton, there's the ridiculously looking Spud (Ewen Bremner) whose mouth can be compared to a sputtering motor, Sick Boy (Johnny Lee Miller) whose obsession on James Bond particularly Sean Connery doesn't compare with his obsession to drugs, Tommy (Kevin McKidd) whose miserable life kept him coming back for more addiction, and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) who doesn't sniff drugs but repugnant enough to loathe such rowdy attitude. These people live their lives in the dank, dreary, horrendous life of drug-dependency. And so they said, they chose life and they chose drugs.
But in the lighter state of humanity, they were people who tried to change their lives, wanting to liberate from that hellish black hole, and they earned their lessons as shown in one of cinema history's most disturbing scene: the dead baby. I think muffin-hearted people wouldn't want to see it, where Renton's friends huddled around all high in drugs and forgetting the Sick Boy's baby for days. In this portrait of desperation, also shown in the early scene, where Renton dives into the "filthiest toilet in Scotland" to retrieve a pill would have to be film's most rabble-rousing scene and could heave stomachs in your local settees. Renton did try to change; but he nearly escaped and thought better of it.
Danny Boyle may have crafted a sympathetic and uncompromising work, however Trainspotting feels inconsistent at times. There are junctures in the film which you really doubt whether you trust such a character of Renton, where you should offer sympathy or plain disgrace. But just like its very iconic poster that tells Andy Warhol was a fib and sets post-modern culture art into proper existence, its story gives an extensive look into modern society and the big dilemma that everyone's on about; not just asking people whether they're on crack but rather asking them whether they had really lived their lives, no matter what choice they make.
Trainspotting is seminal. It might not be for all people in all walks of life but as long as drug addicts relate to this film, we understand them as humans as well. In fact, the screenplay is fantastic, the dialogues are sharply written and the it remains to be the film that bolstered British cinema up to this day and spurred a total cultural phenomenon back in 1996.
Rating: B+
2007 (c) J.S.Datinguinoo
