Suckers for Big Things

Trainspotting is a 1996 crime drama film featuring Ewan McGregor as Mark Renton and his heroin-addicted friends. Renton opens the film by telling people: “Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career…” and a bunch of other things that typically represent “normal life”—a satire of everyone else, meaning, everyone else who is not addicted to heroin like him. The film depicts the life of Renton and his friends who are struggling against heroin.

‘Trainspotting’ as many might not know, is a slang for shooting up heroin through the veins. This often leaves a dark line that you can see through the veins on the arm, which they call a “track,” hence, why injecting heroin through the veins is also called ‘trainspotting.’ As they say, small gestures count but we’re all suckers for big things. Trainspotting is a film about pleasure—or pleasures for that matter. It is a struggle between pleasures—heroin or normal life, an underaged girlfriend or following the law, Iggy Pop or Lizzy (in the case of Tommy).

As Renton attempts to get away from the pleasure of heroin to pursue the pleasure of a normal life—normal according to popular practice, at least—he finds himself to be a mockery by normal life. As much as he wants to separate himself from heroin, he hates the side of “normal life” that looks down upon him as a piece of trash. He knows that heroin isn’t healthy but he also doesn’t want to be like the normal people who call heroin addicts like him ‘trash’. Normal people, in his eyes, become monsters, and though a part of him seeks the pleasure of this “normal life” that does not depend on heroin, he can’t help going back. He knows it’s bad for him but it makes him feel so good, so much better than the monsters of “normal life”—his parents, a job, mortgage, bills, and so on. But the heroin life isn’t easy either. Renton laments: “It looks easy, this, but it’s not. It looks like a doss, like a soft option. But living like this, it’s a full-time business. Pleasure always came at a cost, whichever form it took, be it heroin or “normal life.”

Unhappiness and pain—as much as people desire to get away from it, there can be no real escape. The pleasure is always temporary. People get jobs because they want to escape poverty and owing money. People have friendships, family, even sex, in order to escape loneliness. People take drugs just to escape the general feeling of it. Every day is a struggle for another hit.

It is the same struggle whichever century you were born in. People are quite obnoxious regarding this matter. They like to say that no one else could ever understand what they were going through. The pain may belong to only one person but what people forget is that everyone else has the brains to experience it. People have always struggled against some kind of suffering—wild animals, the miracles of nature, colonization, civil war, genocide. People often forget that while others may not feel your pain, they can feel pain—their own. Despite the pain we experience every day, the movie does teach us this: new things are coming and we must move on. The old will get older, the new will become old, and there will be more new. In the end, there is only forward—only, what kind of forward? Well, you choose.

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Convenience stores have become part of Koreans’ lives over the last 25 years. In 2012, their number reached around 24,000 in Korea, which meant that there is one convenience store for every 2,000 Koreans. Korea even has a higher number of convenience stores compared to US, where this store originated, and Japan and Taiwan, which are considered as convenience store paradises. In the movie Futureless Things (2014), the director was able to deliver a message through the setting—the convenience store, and several symbols that mirror the different themes of the movie.

The convenience store is the perfect setting for the film for it symbolizes the presence of the intersection of the different aspects in everyone’s life. Here, anyone can go in and out. It is one of the most basic things that is embedded in every Korean’s culture. Furthermore, it acts as a melting pot of different people with varying hopes, dreams and religions. It is like a grounded blank space of some sort that even when you look at the workers, they have different desires. Aside from being employees, they also have different distinct characteristics: gay and lesbian couples, aspiring actor, aspiring English speaker, to name a few. If the movie is set in a different place like an office, for example, there are certain structures and stereotypes which may pertain to predetermined roles, unlike in the convenience store where the characterization remains unpredictable. In addition, since it is small and enclosed, viewers are able to see everything—that each person is caught up in different kinds of stories and identities. Even conflicts are observed because there lacks the element of boundaries or limitations, just like the couple who was fighting just because of the flavor of the condom that they were trying to look for. Its transitory nature becomes a good convergence for all these different people with their own stories already set. It is able to satirize the common interactions between social classes, and it cuts through race, class, gender, nationality, sexual orientation and political affiliation.

In the whole duration of the movie, it can also be observed that there were a lot of references to the Korean culture that we are not fully aware of. In fact, they have used different symbols to show tidbits of Korean culture. One of the symbols used in the movie is lottery. This symbolized the frequent gambling in the Korean society. In the movie, the customer did not only turn to God, but also recited the Buddhist mantra to be able to pocket the jackpot prize. This particular symbol is just one of the other imagery used to show the different themes of movie.

Furthermore, the movie was also successful in making the clock as a transition device to further create an intertwined story at the end. In the movie, just when we think that we are trying to get to know more about the character, we get cut off by the clock. After this, we see another employee who is not related to the other one. What is the clock for? At the beginning, one may observe that the scenes seemed like they weren’t in order or that they don’t fit together. The narrative is not in a chronological order, but viewers become aware where and when they are in the shop within the twelve-hour timeframe because of this clock. Every time the clock is shown, another convenience store employee takes on his/her shift. The clock made it seem that although there are different employees, their stories are still intertwined. Aside from showing a day in a life of an employee, the clock may also symbolize a feeling of time pressure—that time is running out. Evidently, time has ran out for one of the characters as seen in the suicide incident in the ending of the movie.

Of Addiction and Longing

At first, when Mike Waters said that the road seemed familiar to him, then the shot created a circular view of the road, I thought that the “familiar view” he was referring to would be the thing they show when your eyes are being checked for eye grade. Because of this, my impression was that, that movie will be touching up on comedy, which was contrary to the monotonous tone and setting of the first scene. However, he suddenly had somewhat like a seizure attack, and at that very moment, I knew that it was not comedy. From having an impression that the movie was light, My Own Private Idaho (1991) actually talked about heavy and serious topics which are viewed as taboo.

Out of the elements present in the movie, I was really hooked with its conflict and its characterization. At the beginning, when a flashback with Mike’s mom was shown, viewers become aware that it will be one of the main driving forces of the movie. True enough, an internal conflict of the movies is Mike’s longing for his mother, which causes him grief. In more parts of the movie, like when Mike was supposed to sleep with a rich older woman, Mike was having flashbacks also of his mother, which caused him to pass out again. The fact that he was dealing with this sadness suggested that it is a contributing factor on why he was having narcolepsy attacks. I have observed that every time Mike was going to have one of his narcolepsy episodes, the movie seemed to show a certain symbolism. Every time Mike tensed up and shut down like a broken machine, symbolism in the form of timelapses of nature gathering its forces appeared on the screen. Furthermore, it was portraying that his dreams of his mother collapse into a vision of home dropping from the sky.

Regarding the characterization, I enjoyed how the characteristics of the actors where developed mainly through dialogue, appearance and action. What I really find interesting is how Mike’s characterization was developed, not only through external action, but also through internal action as shown in the clips which indicate his thoughts and feelings to his mother, and especially to Scott. This characterization helped in creating a tone for the movie, which is depressing. At the end of the movie, it continued to establish this tone as Mike never found his mother, was left by Scott for a woman, was never able to control his narcolepsy, was left by Bob who was somewhat of a guardian to him and ended up with no one to turn to with the disappearances of the important people in his lives.

For me, the movie was sad to watch for it bears complex topics considered as taboo like street hustling, prostitution, and drug and alcohol addiction. Van Zant was successful in creating a queer film which was considered as unorthodox at that time. Through this film, it opened the eyes of those who were uptight regarding these issues. However, I would say that the film still did not fully show a resolution, or did not voice out a stand regarding these instances, when it has already created a platform to be do one.

Selling a Dream

There are movies that have a very smooth flow and understandable transition from one scene to another, and Sorry To Bother You is not one of them! It takes you from the mundane in one scene and to the extraordinary in another, and before you know it, you’re already questioning what you’re watching. The film gives an interesting point on capitalism and its allure to the hopeful.

The movie opens in a scene with an image where the office is illuminated with yellow light in a sea of blue, giving the idea that this job is the hope that Cassius needs for his dreams. It establishes the theme of capitalism selling a dream; a dream where people are happy, rich, and worry-free. From the beginning of the movie, a commercial pops out for worry-free and this comes right in time for the desperation of Cassius. Similar ad placements of Worry Free are seen in areas where people who are in the poverty line reside in. The company knows who to target and it’s the people who want to have the life that is being sold to them through the advertisements and commercials and sadly, people fall for it. Looking at the job of Cassius, a telemarketer, we see him being told that if he does good, he will become a Power Caller, the best of the best. In order to reach that, he has to sell people encyclopedias as, as stated in number 5 of the script, a solution to their problems. As he sells a dream to his sellers, he is also being sold to the idea of being rich. In Wolf Of Wall street fashion, Cassius mimics the iconic montage and celebrations showing that the way up the ladder is fun and exciting. The cherry on top is the black person who has no name because simply put, he becomes the dream of the black people, like Cassius, that anyone can be that person. Once Cassius gets to the top and meets the CEO, he sees himself in a room filled with orgies lit in red and there he is, in a room lit in yellow – same scene as the beginning but now highlights his despair.

From the get-go, it is far from a serious movie and it intends to be that way. Much like the news in Sorry To Bother You, there are always depressing headlines in newspapers and in the television, yet no one is listening. Life is depressing enough so why will I watch the even more depressing reality being showed on the television? This is why I enjoyed the stylistic comedy that the movie uses, because Boots Riley knows nobody wants to listen to that. Violence, humor, or anything that is not normal is the way to go–as portrayed in this movie. What they find interesting in the TV they are watching, applies to what we enjoy too. The only time the people listen to the TV is either through the violent program or the soda can being thrown and Cassius and draws blood on him. Who cares about the poor being used by Worry-Free or the unpaid workers of the telemarketer company? No one, and Cassius knows this. The only time the people listened is when Cassius himself joins the game show “I Got the Shit Kicked Out of Me” and get himself beat up. Just when he was literally covered in poop, a symbolism of him being full of shit due to his use of the “white voice,” he was then able to show his video and only then did people listen to him. This hits hard to me because as I graduate and enter into the working world, I would always see enticing offers and people telling me to climb up the ladder and create a name for myself. They would always show people from my alma mater who are now esteemed bosses in the company as an inspiration for me. In a sense, even they are selling me a dream. A dream that I can be rich and be a part of the higher percentage of society. But once I get there, maybe the view isn’t so good. Furthermore, a lot of people would always tell me that “I’m an Atenean” and I should be this or that. Much like Cassius, he is being told to be a certain criteria in order to go up the ranks. He had to be someone that he isn’t in order to get up the ranks and even as far as almost losing his original voice. Even in the scene with the CEO where he is told that he knows to rap just because of his color. A lot of expectations are being thrown at us and we have no choice but to follow these standards. What they are selling could be enticing but maybe we all have to take a step back and check if we are being sold a dream or being forced to buy one.

I have to see it again: A Generic Title for Schizopolis

One word: WHAT? Usually, before watching films, I have a preconceived idea about what the movie is based on either the title, the trailer, or the director. In this case, however, I did not know what to expect because I did not even know what the word “schizopolis” meant— my first what. Before watching the movie, I thought “okay I am up for this ride” because it was Steven Soderbergh! In my mind, I was expecting something like that of Ocean’s Eleven/Ocean’s Twelve/Ocean’s Thirteen. Who would have thought that this will be my second what? How about my third what, if you may ask? What was THAT movie all about?

Since the movie was jumping from one act to another, I was left very confused on my seat. They were no presence of any obvious transitionary device that would help distinguish one act from another. I was just connecting the dots since the story was nonlinear which seemed to be disconnected and incoherent for me. This made me more confused about the flow, especially since some characters, like Soderbergh himself, would play more than one role across the whole movie. At one point, I just gave up trying to pinpoint which scenes belong with one another. I just assumed the connection of the story based on how the frame where shot. Ironically, the moment I stopped having expectations, that was the point when I started enjoying the movie. This particular incident made me analyze the scenes—that Soderbergh was actually experimenting.

What really struck me is the movie’s experimental use of different film elements to portray three different stories. For something to be entertaining, dialogues, facial expressions and numerous imagery are used, which Schizopolis further explored by telling the story in a non-standard way. They successfully made a movie out of different movie templates. That scene wherein the characters were not really speaking lines, but more of saying the expected script format made me rethink whether dialogue is a crucial element of a film. Obviously, it is, but even if this was the case–even if the characters were using weird dialogues, they were still able to deliver a message. At this point, I thought that generic phrases used emphasized how human connection through communication is shallow. Even those which were in foreign languages seemed to give context clues even without the presence of subtitles. Another is that scene where it was trying to portray a sex scene or that of something like a porn format out of nowhere, by creating an environment fit for the particular scene. This too showed the lack of passion even with the poor usage of language and communication. These above mentioned analysis showed how Schizopolis’ theme is trying to portray a satirical attack on modern cultural lifestyle and the lack of communication.

“You will need to see the picture again and again until you understand everything.”

When Steven Soderbergh said “In the event that you find certain sequences or events confusing, please bear in mind this is your fault, not ours. You will need to see the picture again and again until you understand everything,” I already know that I will end up needing to watch it again. Confusing as it may have been, it still was entertaining for me when I started to see the whole movie and not the separate scened. Soderbergh was successful in creating a challenge to watch the movie above its form and structure.