Trainspotting

For the past meetings on our cinema class, we have watched various documentaries about American cinema. Finally this time, we watched a full movie that was very interesting. The film entitled "Trainspotting" made us concentrate and stay still on our chairs.

In a world full of hopes and challenges, we are introduced to a lifestyle far away from what we hoped for. Sometimes, we tend to do the wrong things because that’s what we think the best thing to do to escape reality. In the film Trainspotting, a group of heroin addicts were living in a lifestyle filled with cheating, stealing, fighting, lying and escaping. They live their life in an economically depressed area during the late 1980s. This British social realist film was based on the novel Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh and directed by Danny Boyle. It also shows how the characters explore their lives in urban poverty in Edinburgh. The characters in the film include Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), Spud (Ewen Bremmer), Sick boy (Johnny Lee Miller), Begbie (Robert Carlyle) and Tommy (Kevin McKidd).

This controversial film shows the life of Mark Renton and his circle of psycho friends who were drug addicts like him. It leads the viewers from the highs and the lows of their lives, ending up with drug deal and betrayal. It does not only show the awful world of drug addiction, but it also hits the viewers with important points to break up the possibility of self destruction.

Self-destruction. That’s what some people do because of their negative look on life.

As we watched the movie, we also appreciated its cinematography. I observed that the way it was filmed was great. I don't have much knowledge in criticizing a cinematography of a film, but in this movie, most of the scene shows a lot of meanings and symbolizes things about the story. The director has his own style in terms of techniques on how they shoot the entire film. It makes the audience understand more on the flow of the story.

“Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a starter home. Choose dental insurance. Choose leisure ware and matching luggage. Choose your future. But why would anyone want to do that?” That’s what they think about at first. But despite of the wrong things they have done, aside from being  worthless citizens, they also wanted a good life wherein there’s no drugs and crime. They tried to live a life far away from those vices, especially Renton. In the end, after Renton betrayed his friends by taking the money they earned from heroin transaction, he then vows to live a stable and traditional life.

Truth is, I'm not really fond of watching social realist films but after watching trainspotting, I somehow appreciated this kind of film. Movies about drug addiction are certainly nothing new, but this film makes everything look different. It gives us a message about how drugs can be so destructive because of its success in presenting the negative results and damages throughout the film. Aside from these, the theme of this film also stands out. Social acceptance is also being promoted among these kinds of people in our society. All of us need to be accepted by our society whatever our status in life may be, because even if we don’t admit it, our society contributes a lot into honing our lives.