I finally got around to watching Trainspotting, and another edition of the Cinematic Revival series of editorials is finally released. Trust me, once the new site design goes live (which is soon I hope) there will be plenty more of these features and hopefully a lot of discussion in the comments on each one. Now… back to Trainspotting, the movie that made Danny Boyle a name in several circles before folks began to know him for the tedious 28 Days Later.
Trainspotting is #178 on IMDB’s top 250 and ranks in at 88% at RottenTomatoes. This film is best described as something of a cult classic, but I can’t help to draw comparisons to another film that I recently saw, but more on that a little later.
Set in Edinburgh the film follows a group of heroin addicts and their miscreant friends, primarily focusing on Mark Renton played by Ewan McGregor who also serves as the film’s narrator. Early on we are introduced to the rest of his pals including Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Johnny Lee Miller) and Tommy (Kevin McKidd) and Begbie (Robert Carlyle).
The beginning of the film features Renton waking up from his latest fix only to proclaim he is done with drugs, cold turkey style. He boards himself into a room with canned soup, three buckets for piss, shit and vomit, a television and … oh yeah… that one last fix, which is going to prove the point of the entire film.
Quick cut to boards on the floor and Renton getting his last fix. Unfortunate, as we will soon learn and as dictated by the screen capture below, his last fix is two suppositories. After shoving these two bad boys up his ass he is on his walk home, during which time Renton informs the viewing audience that the constipation caused by his last fix has worn off and he needs a shitter quick…
After his glorious bowel movement he quickly zips up, turns around and begins fishing through the murky mud for his final hit, and our lesson is… Junkies will do anything to get to their drugs. Really, this is the only message this film has, but it works.
By the way, you can watch that entire sequence I just described at the end of this article. You will then promptly go rent this movie.
Of course, there are examples telling us drugs are bad and even one chap dies, but I would be more likely to blame his death on depression, and would say drugs just sped up the process. However, people will look at this film two different ways, one group will say it glorifies drugs (which it does… in a way) and one will say it is anti-drug.
The anti-drug folk have only one leg to stand on, and that is to the level that the junkies in this film are true junkies. They, as I said, will do anything to get their fix, but outside of that they never appear all that upset about being junkies and there are hardly any consequences. For these fellas there are two options, drugs or life. Drugs supply happiness whereas life only offers up boredom and malaise.
At one moment we get a tongue in cheek answer to what our heroin addicted friend Renton would do if he wasn’t, as he says, “a bad person.” With a smile on his face he reads the narration saying:
Now I’m cleaning up and I’m moving on, going straight and choosing life. I’m looking forward to it already. I’m gonna be just like you. The job, the family, the fucking big television. The washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead, the day you die.
That “just like you” bit stings a little doesn’t it? I am not condoning drug use (I never inhaled), but life really is shit if you really examine day-to-day tasks. Hell, I check my personal mail maybe twice a month just because bills and the bullshit bore me. The junkies in Trainspotting crave fun and happiness. So what if they have to rob old folks homes and break into cars to get items to hock so they can buy their next fix, it is more fun than going to work for eight hours a day and sitting behind a desk.
For me Trainspotting was appealing because it had that sort of hard edge I look for in films. It also has a couple of classic characters in Spud and Begbie. Bremner is great as Spud, and is no stranger to Trainspotting since he played the Renton character in the UK stage version. Robert Carlyle, however, is the treat that gives this film true energy. Begbie is an all out dickhead. Putting it plainly I would have punched this asshole in the face long before letting him stay at my place or even share a booth with me, but that is what makes his character so intriguing, and equally integral to the story.
Outside of saying that a junkie will do anything for drugs, if there was to be one more comment this film makes, it is friendship and a junkie’s need for camaraderie. As much of a dick Begbie is for randomly beating up people, pulling out knives or beating someone within an inch of their life for spilling beer on his suit, he still has his friends, and not a one of these friends haven’t considered that he just might turn on them one day.
