THE SUBCONSCIOUS CAN BE A SCARY THING WHEN YOU'RE IN "TRANCE"

I’m always intrigued when multiple people tell me they “need to watch the film again to be sure they “got” what was going on. It’s usually means one of two things for me. It’s either going to be one of those annoying things you actually need a user’s manual to watch. Or it’s going to be something with really a good dollop of meat on it that I can sink my teeth into. See, I’m fussy like that. I love a good challenge. I definitely don’t like simplistic endings and half – baked storylines. God knows I’ve moaned about it here often enough. But the challenge always is, with these “multiple levels of reality” type film, not ending up with a film so sophisticated you need dedicated websites explaining it in full for people to get it. Which is why I am not a fan of Donnie Darko. But I’ll moan about that some other time. I’m happy to say, having watched Trance, it doesn’t make the sh.t list. It scrapes through. Just, in places, but it scrapes through.

As the late great John Lennon said once, life is what happens to us while we are busy making plans. You can plan something down to the last detail, you can think of every single eventuality, but in the end… Life will happen. Something will “go wrong”.  This is precisely what happens during a seemingly “perfectly” planned heist at a well-known London auction house. The auction house has stringent security systems so the heist has to be planned within an inch of its life. They have everything thought of, down to an “inside man” in the shape of the auctioneer. But then… Life happens. The criminals cannot find the picture they stole, and a blow on the head means the auctioneer, the last person who had it, cannot remember it either. The criminals are utterly desperate to get their booty back so in their desperation they hire the services of a hypnotherapist. But see, that’s the thing with things like hypnosis. Once you let someone so deep into your mind… Well… Practically anything can happen.

Ok, I have to say, I really shouldn’t have mistrusted a master like Danny Boyle. He has done a spectacular job. Don’t sit down to the film with any expectations. Or do, it won’t make much of a difference, you’ll be changing your mind as to what is happening every fifteen minutes. But don’t worry. You go for a very, very exciting ride, but you get the explanation in the end. Yes, yes it’s a tad like the much caricatured “villain explaining his master plan” scene. Don’t be disheartened by that comment though and trust me, by the time Mr Boyle has quite finished with you; you will need someone to sit you down and explain what the heck just happened. The film is fast paced, a bit like the more modern editing style that people see younger directors “accused of” a bit of that, you know,  MTV style, snappy, video clip like editing, you know what I mean. But I reckon it suits the film. It really augments that sense of disorientation that is brought about in Simon, the auctioneer – played by James McAvoy.  I think the “explanation” scene is legit also because, you are as confused as Simon by that point and the editing, the storytelling, the way the film has been structured all compliments that fact.

So, if you want something that is going to present a bit more of a challenge for you, go for Trance by all means. It is different enough so that fogies like me literally have nothing to grumble about and familiar enough so that if you are not a lover of massively complicated plotlines and convoluted films you will still not be completely alienated but actually have a real good time. And also, yes,  it totally deserves a re-watch!

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 =)

A ROAD TRIP TO SELF-DISCOVERY : "THE BEACH"

I like road movies. But there is an inherent danger to filming them. I mean if you stick to the very basics of the genre, it is pretty evident what’s going to happen. A character is usually discontent with his life; he starts off on a journey, has many adventures, comes out changed and developed a better and / or happier person at the end. There are of course various things you can do to avoid the whole film getting boring, the characters can be original or very realistic, or even just very, very easy to emphasize with. The adventures that will inevitably happen on the way can be really original and unexpected. Or the ending can be “different” not sad maybe – but usually it ends up having to be – but not what one would commonly expect perhaps. The Beach, based on the best-selling novel, starts off looking as if it is going to be everything we have seen before and less. By the end though, it redeems itself. Oh yes.
Richard (a rather young and gawky looking Leonardo di Caprio) is looking for himself. He is a young American who has set out on the road to find a life less-ordinary, like a lot of travelers tramping the roads out there. And like a goodly number of them his path leads to Asia and more specifically to Thailand. The fates lead him to what seems to be exactly what he is looking for: a life completely of the grid and cut off from modern society. On a paradise island, unknown to but a handful of people a small group of idealistic travelers have come together and formed a commune. They have built everything themselves, they live off the land; they do not leave the island unless they absolutely have to in order to get supplies. Their leader is the matriarch Sal (Tilda Swindon) who is firm when she has to be but has been to all intents and purposes “running the show” for a good couple of years now. Richard fully feels that he has found his new home, the place he will live for ever and ever, but it doesn’t take long for him to realize that human nature is human nature whether in a city or on a tropical island and that his “paradise” has darker things lurking in its waters than he could ever possibly imagine…
Like I said, this film doesn’t come off to an incredibly promising start. I mean, the director here is Danny Boyle for God’s sake, I expected more and I was seriously disappointed. But then, the “adventure” bit of the film starts. And the film really takes the opportunity to delve into human nature, the mind and its psychology. The first half, in this sense, is a necessary evil. And to be completely fair just because we have seen the whole thing before it doesn’t actually mean it isn’t realistic. Things similar to this do happen. I am not of course talking about communes on paradise islands but about people backpacking across the world “looking for themselves”. It is a rather sad footnote to modern life that people are completely unable to “find themselves” within the boundaries of city life and have to set off around the world to do so, but that would be the topic of a completely different film. When all is said and done this film is based on a best-selling book. The character development is a bit sketchy at times and some developments aren’t exactly the biggest surprises to hit the big screen. Yet it has been filmed by an exceptionally talented director, and although I haven’t read the book, I feel that a lesser director may well have churned out a completely “ordinary” road movie. Danny Boyle has succeeded in stepping out of that category. In fact the ways he has chosen to film some sections borders on the experimental but I think, in a funny kind of way, it works really, really well. Basically all us humans living on this planet are looking for a way to be happy. We may or may not be successful in our search. But if we do see a glimmer of success, we will do anything, and I mean anything to hold on to that real sense of happiness. You don’t believe me? Watch the film, think a bit, then answer again…