Trainspotting (1996)

Trainspotting allegedly means shooting up heroin or the likes of, or the act of watching and spotting trains for a hobby. This ironic tittle for a movie about burn outs living in hell during one the worst economic seasons in U.K. history, left to do nothing but get high and live life. All throughout the movie I felt I was watching a really edgy public service announcement about not shooting up. Trainspotting (1996) was a dirty drug trip that confused me more than satisfying me. Seasoned director Danny Boyle showed the sad and grey world of United Kingdoms in the 90’s for what it had been and how it affected people lives. With nothing much to do but get high and get drunk, the audience is shown these characters’ struggles and obstacles during one of the ugliest recensions and governmental shifts the U.K. has seen.

I did like the downfall of the protagonist, Rent, and how he would get off and on drugs throughout the film and how the plot moved along his inability to keep sober for more than a certain period of time. He was a terrible friend surrounded by even more terrible friends, nobody was good to anyone and yet I still felt if anyone was to win, had to be Rent. Something about him was not entirely malleolus but he definitely was not the hero, he successfully killed his close friend by small actions that domino effected into a bigger issues, for example supporting his use. In a movie with no one to root for, no one to care for, none of them cared for what they did and no one cared about anyone. I felt like that was a great move on the director and that I can appreciate. The sequences of events leading up to the end of the movie were creativity done and amazing for its time in terms of editing and dialogue/character interactions. It felt like the perfect movie to show Scotland specifically in that time and how terrible everyone looked and felt about their current situation, I have seen something like this come out from the U.K. before but nothing ever this early in this location.

According to sites such as the Economist.com in the mid-1990s political parties were not seeing eye to eye and this effected the job market drastically. Jobs were far and few and education was sought out less. Why this was an important period to show this intense drug fever is interesting and actually perfect for Boyle to do. This was the time that did not feel like the 90s and more like the 80s of dirty gritty drug usage and profanity and party life but with a lot of electric music and spiky hair. Michael Deacon from the Telegraph.co.uk describes the 90s as The Diamond Decade, where the queen reign for a fifth decade, snobs were being born to distinguish themselves from others and it seemed like the time of irony, nobody took this time period serious. This tells a lot because the director, I felt, took this idea and ran with it with the film. The music was louder and punchier, the jobs were virtually nonexistent and the drugs were ramped. 

Scotland was in shambles and this is a direct effect to the all of the U.K. not being all together. This is shown throughout the film, the idea that Scotland was the bottom of bottom, how the city is lit  and loud, juxtapose Rent and his friends going to the mountains for a brief hike. London is bright and busy and the color seemed to come back on screen, I noticed this briefly but thought it was because of geography locations or weather. The locations in Scotland seemed glim, the camera panned more down. This is telling because Scottish cinema has been trapped under Tartanry and Kailyard, ahistorical elements of Scottish culture typically depicted to describe Scottish culture for centuries. Removing one’s self from these monolithic and regressive tropes surrounding Scotland, gives directors like Danny Boyle the green light to evolve the cinema (Petrie et. al.). These versions of Scottish people break from the famous mountains and lust greens to angry drunks and small rural wisecrackers who live real lives audience can relate to. This is fairly new in Scottish cinema and Trainspotting was one of the productions that led to contributions to new cinematic world of Scotland.

References

Petrie, D. (2005). Scottish cinema: introduction. Screen, 46(2), 213-216. doi:10.1093/screen/hjh060

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/9290758/The-Diamond-Decades-The-1990s.html

           

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Name: Nnenne O_  Date: Feb 1 2018