A CULT CLASSIC I WOULDN'T DREAM OF INTRODUCING : "TRAINSPOTTING"

Ok, let’s continue with our gallery of shifty characters shall we? While we’re on the subject of shifty characters and British cinema, not to mention having watched the film again quite recently, I really, really couldn’t pass over Trainspotting. I mean not really. The film is a legend in its own right, be it for the soundtrack, astounding special effects and crazy characters but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s get a lowdown on the story first.
Welcome to Edinburgh. Only when I say welcome to Edinburgh don’t think the Castle, the festival or any other big tourist attraction you read about online and see on the telly. We are talking the backwaters of Edinburgh, where the folks who have decided to “not choose life” (we all remember Renton’s opening speech, right kids?) or rather choose the sort of life that their parents and societal conventions disapprove of live. Renton and his friends Spud, Sick Boy, Begbie and Joey drink, use heroin and don’t give a hoot what their “future” is going to be. Their crazy lifestyle, punctuated by unexpected (and often uncalled-for and unprovoked) bouts of violence and Sick Boy’s off the wall schemes and theories will, however, after a time, start to come apart. Renton is the only one with the sense to try and abandon the “sinking ship” but tragedy, circumstances – not to mention his beloved friends – will make it very, very difficult for this to happen indeed. Will Renton finally be able to escape the snowball of mounting heroin and drug-related tragedy? Or is this just another pause before yet another relapse?...
Now, as I said, Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting is a legend in its own right. It gives an uncompromising look at the drug culture, and the interesting thing is that he doesn’t, in the vein of mainstream films, portray it all as doom and gloom. I mean, not entirely. Comedy and fantasy play a very, very big part in the film not to mention the music which is not only brilliant (and with names like Brian Eno, Iggy Pop, Blur and Pulp on the list I honestly don’t see how it could NOT be brilliant) it is also upbeat. I think it is precisely this, Boyle’s ability to mix the good and the bad so believably, that makes Trainspotting so watchable. Take Begbie for example. Begbie is a small-time crook. He doesn’t do drugs, but does pretty much anything else, including chucking beer glasses at innocent passers-by simply because he is bored and wants to start a fight. He would be a truly terrifying character if met in real life – and we realize this at the end of the film, when things get serious – but at the beginning he seems little more than a character put there for comedy relief. “Everyone goes on about how terrible drugs are, no one talks about how much fun it is.” Complains Sick Boy, “I mean, if it wasn’t fun, we wouldn’t do it!” I think that’s a brilliant summary of the film. If the film had constantly harped on about the truly horrible and sad things it portrays (and believe me it does) it would be a film notorious for its sadness and hard to watch, a bit like Darren Aaronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream. In its stead, our highly sympathetic leading man Renton, the plethora of characters that we cannot help watching partly because of their unbelievable and creative antics, partly out of horror of what they might do next and the uncompromising stare at real events that Boyle portrays brings us smoothly to the end of the film without us having understood where the two hours went.
So Ok, does this mean that drugs are encouraged, as some critics say? In my opinion the answer is a big, fat no. Because, like real life, the good is portrayed with the bad, the funny with the sad, it makes the negative events in the film all the more realistic, even horrific, and less melodramatic. Let me give you an example; a classmate of mine told me he watched this film with his 13 year-old triplets (fast – forwarding the sex scenes, naturally). At the end, apparently he overheard them talking amongst themselves, saying how horrible drugs were and that they didn’t understand how and why people did drugs… So go figure… They seem to have got the message at any rate =)