Trainspotting (1996)

All I can think is.. how did I go through all the teenage years of my life without seeing this? And I said that in my head in a goddamned Scottish accent.

I loved Trainspotting (1996). Being a student at school and all, I felt I could really connect with the protagonist Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) throughout the film. I'd never done heroine in my entire life, but the whole choosing not life thing, I could get. School's nice and great, but it's a part in a kid's life where you're still a kid but supposed to be an adult. You're still vulnerable. You've got the whole goddamned future spread out in front of you, and it scares you to hell. You don't have a job, a family, a cushion of safety to pad your life with. You're all alone so life isn't some cotton candy dreamland for you, it's a miserable hell filled with worries and stress every goddamned way. Or, that's how I see my life. Trainspotting showed that to an extent. When life got hard, they just shot up. It made things easier. I can really understand that, because I know how it's like to run away from things.

Trainspotting is directed by Danny Boyle and its based on the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. The novel was adapted into a screenplay by John Hodge, and it's a gorgeous screenplay.

Similar to the drug cuts in Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Trainspotting is like a Disney channel movie that's about drugs. Or perhaps more like British MTV.  It follows a group of friends and their drugged up lives, and in that way it's like Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream (2000), except Requiem came four years later. Also, unlike Requiem for a Dream, Trainspotting, while dark at times, is less horrifying. If you had to compare Mark Renton's drug induced hallucinogenic nightmares to Sara Goldfarb's game show ones, you'd probably agree. Not only that, but Requiem for a Dream focuses more on the body: Sara's weight loss, Harry's lost limb, his girlfriend's prostitution for drugs, and etc, while Trainspotting focuses more on the emotions, but not too much.

For example, the loss that is happening around the heroine addicts is there, and it can be felt, but the grief and depressing emotions is quickly replaced by a new development, not allowing the dingy feelings to sink in. For example, even during a funeral that should be tense and edgy, the protagonist instead of respectfully paying his respects, converses with a friend on how the man passed away. The whole conversation is sad but it has its moments of comic relief or emotional pauses, like when a man sitting in front of them, gives them a quick but striking glare. However, at the end of the conversation and when the sadness of the death is beginning to sink in, the scene is quickly cut off and replaced by a new scene of a drug deal in the making.

All in all, Trainspotting is composed of a cast of likeable characters, a great soundtrack ("Sing" by Blur is epic), and some brilliant camera shots and angles.

Trainspotting uses the low camera shot a couple of times and when it does, it looks great.

This was the first low camera shot that I noticed, and the colors are absolutely warm filling the shot with character. The room has sunshine coming in and illuminating its warm but barren contents. The bed is low and covered by a shabby-looking sheet, with a folded down table next to it. There are small tidbits lying about the floor of the room but not on the table, exemplifying the emptiness of the room. It connects with the barrenness of the protagonist's life at that moment. 

I love this shot. I can't fathom the symbolism in this mise-en-scene (I don't want to), but it is amazing. Okay, a quick breakdown would be, the room is of the rundown room of Tommy, a heroine addict with AIDS who just died from toxoplasmosis, brought on by the cat waste of the kitten shown. There is a poster, filthy brown walls, a dirty soccer ball from the past, and garbage all over the ground. Obviously, there are a great number of symbols in this shot. The soccer ball can be seen from the soccer game that introduced the whole gang of friends at the beginning of the film. It was from a time when the protagonist was still a heroine addict, but Tommy wasn't, and in the viewpoint of the film, a better past time. The light falls on the soccer ball just enough so that is can be identified. The most important thing in this shot, is obviously the kitten. It is framed by faint sunlight that falls against the wall. Kittens usually symbolize innocence, except this innocent kitten managed to be the death of Tommy. Not only that, but this kitten managed to survive a heroine addict, while a baby didn't in the past. There's obviously more, but I'm not going to even try to do a full rundown mini-analysis. (It's 7:03 AM and I haven't slept all night). 

I absolutely love this low angle, low camera shot. It's fantastic. You see it once in a while, but not too often, and so it feels like a fresh breath of cinematography after seeing the same things done over and over again.

This scene was absolutely disgusting but insane. Underwater shots of this kind is usually always done the same way (Whip It [2009] is one among many), but there's not enough of them to get sick of their lack of originality. Not only that but it's still gorgeous to look at. The second is a low camera shot, and Mark Renton is actually crawling out of a toilet bowl. Trippy.

This is one of my most favorite scenes from the whole entire film. That landscape is simply breathtaking and looks unreal. Throughout the beginning of this scene, I kept thinking, that has to be a huge billboard like the one from She's Out of My League (2010), but no, it's real. And simply amazing. Also has symbolic connotations but I'm not going to do any analyzing because I'm heading to sleep now.

I'd give it a solid 4 out of 5 for its brilliant screenplay, wonderful soundtrack, cinematography, acting, direction, and execution.

4/5