Going straight and choosing life: On Trainspotting (1996)

There are way too many things going on in Trainspotting. I needed more than a full week to really process the film, and I admittedly didn’t know how to start this reflection for the longest time. One thing I processed immediately, however, was that Trainspotting easily earned its spot on my personal list of movies everyone needs to see in their lifetime.

And the reasons?

There are way too many reasons, because there’s a lot to unpack in Trainspotting. The film has so many themes and elements—substance abuse, peer pressure, the complexity of both romantic and platonic relationships, debt, withdrawal, and so on—it’s likely that different viewers will find different merits in the same movie. Here are some of the themes and motifs that stuck out to me the most:

When I talked to a friend about the film, she said she thoroughly enjoyed Trainspotting because it was “everything she wasn’t.” Thinking about it now, I do resonate with my friend’s statement as well—I like to think I’m a relatively clean person, never having done any sort of drug, and I stay away from trouble for the most part. I think most people see me as the type of go-getter Renton talks about in his opening monologue, choosing life, a job, the fucking big television.

It also made me think about how, when we were younger, anything British was associated with class and sophistication. Every character with a British accent in all the children’s movies was always so prim and proper, and spic and span. The way Trainspotting presented Edinburgh seemed to contradict everything we were taught about the United Kingdom when we were younger. Everything was dirty, gritty, and raw. I felt that this was a more genuine and honest portrayal of the United Kingdom, showing us all the ugly bits. Everything was so new to me, and I loved it.

The scene where Renton suffers from withdrawal, and is haunted by all the people he’s affected throughout his affair with heroin—Sick Boy’s baby who died; Spud, who was jailed while he was set free; Tommy, who was impeccably clean before he introduced him to heroin; Diane, an underage schoolgirl he had slept with—was executed eerily well. There’s so much to talk about when it comes to just that scene.

I found the scene haunting for two reasons—first, all the elements placed together made it feel as if I were carrying Renton’s guilt. I immediately wanted all the people who’ve ever done me wrong to suffer through a sequence like this of their own, where my ghost haunts them about all the stupid things they’ve done to hurt me. Second, it only reaffirmed how trying to quit vices is very much like a double-edged sword. There’s a certain kind of desire for something you know is destructive, but it’s not like its destructiveness gets rid of the desire at all. As Taylor Swift so eloquently puts it, “Just because you’re clean don’t mean you don’t miss it.”

Lastly, we have the theme of “closure”, so to speak—every film that has a standard narrative is bound to end and finish somewhere. When the film closed with “Born Slippy” playing in the background, with Renton silently leaving with the bag full of money, my jaw was dropped the entire time. Using similar monologues for both the opening and closing scenes, while it sounds cheesy and cliché in theory, took me totally by surprise in the best way. Trainspotting’s ending is one of my favorite movie endings of all time, no contest.

There are so many layers to that ending. We had that debate we had in class about whether or not Renton was “choosing life” because he really wanted to, or because he felt like it was something he only ought to do. I like to think Renton legitimately wanted to be a better person, or to be “just like us”, no matter how creepy that idea sounds. There’s also that bit where Renton admits he tries to justify him leaving with the money in all sorts of ways, but he owns up to the fact that he “ripped them off.” When you take it at face value—he ditched his friends and stole the money—I guess you could say he did do a terrible thing, but when you consider the circumstances of his situation and ask other important questions, you might think twice.

I could go on and on about what I loved about Trainspotting, but I remain firm in my belief that different people will find different merits in the film. There’s only so much I can dissect from the film, and I’m sure other people will see things that I might have missed. I maintain that everyone needs to see Trainspotting at least once in their life, and maybe then can we start to get by and look ahead until the day we die.

(In)convenience store

Futureless Things is somewhat a confusing film. Every storyline seems to have a structure in it, but when they’re put together there doesn’t seem to be much coherence in it. Themes also seem to vary from skit to skit, from romance moving onto comedy onto political commentary onto comedy again, and so on. This technique has worked in some films I’ve watched, but this doesn’t seem to make a full impact for me.

The lone common theme I could think of when it comes to these storylines would be the commentary it has on consumerism and ones who are affected by it. With the setting primarily being a convenience store, we are introduced into the inner workings of it and how the different players included would interact with each other. Clerks would have interaction with each other, with customers and with their boss, Mr. Chun. It was refreshing to see a film made particularly in this setting, as I was able to catch a glimpse into what these people behind the counter might actually be going through. Clerks might be balancing this with a bigger dream such as acting, they might just be getting by in an unfamiliar place such as the North Korean was, or they could be looking for something to help them survive.

Their storylines aren’t given proper conclusions though, as they seem to abruptly end just as they start getting interesting (apart from the two couples at the beginning). Mr. Chun would seem to be the only mainstay character as we see him in multiple skits throughout the film. His storyline would also be the one given a proper conclusion as we see in the last scene. Perhaps this would be a commentary on the fates of store owners such as him, who do have to put up with multiple personalities and people with different motivations such as his part-time workers, while at the same time, trying to feed his family. It’s a difficult task, to say the least, but it’s what business owners have to put up with.

He would let this get the best of him, as consumerism and making ends meet would prove to be too much. As he is berated by the head branch and by his unpaid workers, he thinks of suicide as the only escape out of it. The last few scenes would prove to be the most impactful for me, as corporate greed is given a spotlight. With the permits put on different parts of the looted convenience store, and even on the hanging corpse of Mr. Chun, a lot can be interpreted. It left me with a lot of questions about what really goes in behind the counter, especially in a place which a lot of people, including me, take for granted.

With the different faces I saw behind the counter of the AK24 convenience store, it reminds me as well to see the faces of the 7-Elevens and the Ministops that I would visit. These people aren’t things which I take advantage of, they’re people as well who are living just like me, just finding ways to thrive and survive.

“Heroin’s got great fucking personality”

Watching this movie for the second time, it was refreshing to go through the different events and scenes yet again. Seeing as my first time watching this was when I was around 13 or 14, there were definitely a lot of things I missed.

The theme of drug usage definitely would be prominent all throughout the duration of the film. Going through the characters’ stories, it was clear that there is a diversity of personalities occurring within the group. There’s the easily-irritated Begbie, the witty and tricky Sick Boy, the well-intentioned Tommy, the clueless but lovable Spud and the ever-loyal Renton. However, I did notice that as heroin was used by any of the characters, their unique personality would be stripped completely. They would be dumbed down into a somewhat lifeless body lying on the floor, while he’s tripping on the drug. The extremity of this would be seen especially with the gruesome fate of Tommy. Drugs therefore serves as another character for me, both halting and progressing the plot forward for each character.

Another piece of commentary on drugs was also noticeable for me with the contrast between its usage and the rehabilitation from it. With the two effects-heavy scenes with Renton, this was exemplified. As he would relapse from his court-mandated rehabilitation and give in to heroin yet again, he would “sink” into a nicely carpeted hole as he trips out. He would then feel the comfort of this carpeted hole all the way from the drug house to the emergency ward of the hospital. This would definitely be in contrast with the rehab montage, which was more erratic and crazy, with his mistakes and fears coming back to haunt him as he sweats the heroin out. These cinematic devices used definitely do drive home the ironic nature of these two things. Comfort can be felt in something that can destroy you while the opposite can be felt in something that can save you from that destruction.

The third act would also touch on the truth of relapse as Renton would move to London as he lives a life away from heroin. Despite his success in his job and his motivation to stay clean, his “demons”, or in this case, his friends from back home, would come back to haunt him. Begbie and Sick Boy, his new roommates, would begin to destroy his life yet again, as they would intrude into his daily routine and would even sell some of his stuff. He would even give into the temptation to do heroin yet again, as the stress of taking care of his friends would be too much.

Loyalty would go hand-in-hand with the drug theme, as the ever-loyal Renton would be challenged when it comes to both his friends and heroin. Would he betray his friends that he’s stayed so loyal and take the money? Would he ditch heroin, the thing which gave him so much comfort, once and for all and live a drug-free life? Eventually, we would see these questions answered by the end of the film, which definitely gave me the conclusion that I wanted. Renton would be a survivor of his own demons and his own addiction.

Overall, I truly did enjoy the film the second time, especially as I gained these new insights. This perspective into drug addiction and its victims would definitely give me something to remember as I move into the world of health care after I graduate. Just like Renton, the loyalty of these people are tested on a regular basis and their struggles shouldn’t be ignored.

Trainspotting

The film, Trainspotting 1996, could be explained by likening the feeling of watching the film to a rollercoaster ride. It was solely focused on heroin addicts and their life journey which I found interesting since it showed drug addiction in its rawness. The film went down and dirty with the portrayal of drug addicts and even showed how unappealing heroin looks. However, the film did not focus on only one perspective — either condemning or praising these addicts. Instead, during the opening monologue of Mark Renton, it talked about how you either choose life or choose heroin.

There were certain literal and figurative “high” points and some “low” points as well. One low point which I found very strange and disruptive of the whole realistic aspect of the film was when Mark Renton dove into the dirty toilet bowl. I couldn’t bear watching this scene as it was disgusting and in my opinion, made no sense at all. Another low point was when the baby was left alone in the room while the main characters were getting high on heroin. It was a very uncomfortable sight to see and left me thinking how could a mother be so selfish to expose her son to a very toxic environment. I found myself thinking that the baby would grow up to be a drug addict as well. Unfortunately, the baby boy suffered an even more tragic fate than that and died an undeserved death after having been surrounded by so much drugs.

A “high” point in the film which I particularly enjoyed was the moment when Mark found out that Diane, the woman he hooked up with the previous night, was actually a high-school student. This appeared to be one of the film’s plot twists and showed how deceiving looks can be — that we may think we know a person by looks alone. Apart from this, I found it entertaining to watch Mark Renton’s withdrawal or detox phase in his old bedroom. From the baby crawling from the ceiling to Diane in her school uniform, it was both creepy and surreal how much impact drugs can have on both our minds and our bodies.

I found the scene where Sick Boy was being philosophical and talking about his “unifying theory of life” to be relatable in a sense since it is true that we acquire something then eventually lose it. It surprised me how the film took a serious turn after showing scenes that were mostly about Renton and his heroin journey. Not only did the film give a glimpse of what it feels like to be high on heroin, but it showed how it feels to be high on this so-called “life”. The drug served as life for the main characters and it was what drove them to continue on with living. The film left me on the edge of my seat, waiting to know what Mark Renton would do. The ending showed that Mark chose life and it made me wonder if it was just false hope again or will he follow through this time.

annyeonghaseyo! welcome to futureless things!

Ever wonder what convenience store clerks do all day? No? Me neither – not until I came across Futureless Things. Starring Korea’s best, this film revolves around the different kind of people store clerks encounter in a span of a few hours. Through this film, director Kim Kyung-Mook scratches the surface and goes beneath it to transform these simple convenience store stories into something greater.

At first, I was excited for we were finally going to watch a light-hearted film. I guess I paid little attention to the title and focused more on what the first few scenes brought to the table – light and cool color grading, soft classical scores, and a budding romance between two couples. Little did I know, everything was to slowly go downhill after Seong-joon, another regular store clerk, disappears into a cardboard box given to him by a mysterious, and possibly, supernatural woman.

This is when I realized that Futureless Things does not only focus on one genre, but multiple. These being thriller, comedy, romance, drama, and even fantasy. Even better, this film was able to portray all these different genres in such an odd setting – a convenience store. It is not common for films to shoot in a single location, let alone a small one, but Futureless Things was able to share different stories with the use of a simple store.

All these movie genres were seen in a span of less than 24 hours through the eyes of different store clerks. This even proves to be true for real life clerks. They experience so much in one day and try to do what they can to pass the time. For those who are not in their position, we simply spend a few minutes in the store and pay for what we have bought, while store clerks have to live out the same day repeatedly.

It is hard for me, a Filipina, to give a detailed and accurate review of Futureless Things because of all the underlying Korean ideas and banter seen in the film. However, from what I have picked up about Korean culture throughout the years, I can say that the convenience store’s customers are a representation of Korea’s modern society.

At first, I thought people would enter the store at random. However, I started to observe that everyone was not the same. Some were from another race, religion, and status of life. Paul Lee, one of the store clerks, who would listen to English audiobooks during his down time, tried to converse with a mother and her child who spoke English as they entered the store. However, he was surprised when the mother replied to him in fluent Korean. This scene tackles the Korean craze of trying to speak English proficiently or even forcing your child to only speak this language. The next customers who enter are Middle Eastern women. As they approach the counter, one of them points to her nose and back to a picture of a Korean woman. Paul then understands that she had a nose job to look like a this woman. In this scene, viewers learn more about Korea’s beauty standards.

Because all walks of life, despite status, gender, race or religion, enter convenience stores, store clerks are forced to interact and respect every one of these people. I guess one could say these stores bring society together in one way or another.

There are still multiple scenes that are confusing to me such as everyone gathering eerily outside the locked store at night, some Korean banter, and even the ending. However, I feel like one must be truly immersed in Korean culture in order to fully understand this comedic yet dark film.

A Trip on the Train(spotting)

Trainspotting is a peculiar film. The film revolves around a bunch of addicts and their shenanigans to achieve their individual goals. We see their trials and all of the terrible things that they have to do and live with. As I knew the film was going to be about drugs, I was expecting the movie to be “trippy” and while some scenes did meet that expectation, ultimately the viewing experience was more grounded than expected. I enjoyed the film because of its plot, characters, and theme, and I also praise it for its ability to be gritty and realistic while talking about the harsh realities of the life of an addict yet always remembering that at its core, it is a comedy, and a good one at that.

One thing I’d like to praise the film for is its structure. When I was watching, the plot went all over the place while simultaneously keeping my interest. One minute, it’s about Renton trying to get over his addiction, then he’s doing drugs again, and then all of a sudden, he’s part of a drug deal. Though the film was shot in the point-of-view of a certain character in particular, the overall sequencing of the scenes gave us enough insight on the thoughts and motivations of each member of the group allowing us to see that each character is messed up in their own special little way.

Speaking of characters, Trainspotting does an exceptional job of showing that almost all of its characters are definitely not good people. The drugs were, by far, the least toxic thing within the movie. We see most of the movie in Renton’s point-of-view, so the flaws in other characters are highlighted while we see him as our “hero”. Personally, I didn’t like Renton. I found his lack of conviction to be off-putting for a protagonist as he would constantly go back on his word for one final hit. However, I do recognize that this was likely the intention of the author of the book that the movie was based on. Having Renton be unable to completely move on from drugs showcases the reality of how hard it is to truly overcome addiction. Then there’s Begbie, the most obnoxious character I’ve seen in recent history. He lacks any redeeming quality. Throughout the film, we see that he’s a menace to everyone around him. To society, he’s an aggressive man-child who will start a bar fight for no real reason. To his “friends”, he’s a parasite, leeching off their success while burdening them at the same time. Another parasitic character is Sick Boy, who is perhaps the least trustworthy within the group. As he openly admitted to being tempted to steal the bag of money given to the group after celebrating their successful drug deal, we also understand that in addition to being untrustworthy, he’s also not very bright. However, his redeeming quality is that he was the only member of the group able to show emotion when baby Dawn died, likely because he was her father, meaning that he at least has some level of humanity to him. Then, there’s the most “human” character of the group, Spud. He’s not touted as a devil like Begbie, or perfect like Tommy, as a character he’s just there. He isn’t very bright so he gets influenced easily, but he at least tries to be a decent human. Definitely the most decent of all the characters is Tommy, who had everything going for him: a good attitude, money, good looks, and a girlfriend. Of course, he ended up losing all of these things due in no small part to Renton’s actions.

Loss is what I believe to be the overarching theme of the film. At the park scene, Sick Boy gives his theory about having something and then losing it, which echoed throughout the film in all of the characters. Tommy’s loss is the best example. He lost his sex tape, then his girlfriend, which made him lose his will to live, making him turn to vices, leading to his loss of money, looks, and eventually life. In him, we see a character lose his innocence despite the initial action not even being his doing. Renton experienced a different type of loss. His loss is that he lost his “friends”. He took the money and ran, losing the trust that they placed in him. Though, I wouldn’t consider it a loss as his friends were parasitic, he did lose the only constants that he had. The losses of the other characters aren’t as deep. Begbie lost the money, Sick boy lost — who is suggested to be — his daughter, and Spud lost his freedom by being sent to jail. Then, throughout the film we see physical instances of loss such as Renton losing his television after Sick Boy sells it. What’s interesting is that almost all of these instances of loss were orchestrated by other members in their friend group, who are supposed to be the people that help each other.

The movie’s dark tone of storytelling complemented its brand of comedy well. The movie never took itself too seriously and took liberties with being odd. Though I could do without the gross-out humor, the dialogue in some scenes, such as when Renton was cursing his Scottish heritage, made me laugh and feel bad while doing so.

All of these factors combined gave me a memorable viewing experience, and I’m glad to know that Trainspotting has a recently released sequel so I can continue to follow the lives of the characters I’ve grown to hate, yet still be intrigued by.

Trainspotting

I found the movie Trainspotting very interesting because of the way it explored drug addiction and the behavior of someone who is trying to get clean from a drug. Trainspotting is one of the films that show up when you search “must watch films” on Google, and one that I’ve been meaning to watch for so long, but just never had the time to. I was really excited to watch it in class when I saw it in the syllabus and it was for good reason.

The film was shown through Renton’s perspective and how he saw things from an addicts perspective. In my opinion, his difficulties in dealing with his drug addiction could not only be applied to drugs, but also our own mundane addictions.

For example, I used to find myself addicted to video games. Similar to Renton, I found it very difficult to quit playing video games cold turkey and simply tell myself I’ll play just one last game and then I’ll quit. However, as we saw in the movie, stopping an activity that you’re addicted to can lead to relapsing. Even if I had stopped playing video games for a time, there was that itch to play whenever I got stressed from school in order to escape from the stress and be somewhere else mentally. To a certain extent, this also happened to Renton as he relapsed back to doing heroin once he was faced with the stress of the underage girl, Diane, threatening him and forcing him to keep seeing her even if he may face potential jail time by doing so. On a more positive note, the film is also able to show the positives of overcoming your addiction as initially seen in how Renton was able to integrate himself back into society and his friend’s lives before he relapsed due to stress and the threats of Diane.

Something I also liked was how the film showed Renton being able to live better when he moved to London. I think this shows how our environment and situation might be affecting us. It made me think on how important it was to be aware of our own situations and even if we feel comfortable somewhere, it might not be the best for us as it leads to more problems. This can be seen in Renton’s friends as most of them were bad influences and were not really taking life seriously. There’s a saying that says you are the average of your 5 closest friends and I would say that there is a truth to that. Being aware of your friends and how they affect you is very important because you might find comfort in being with them due to the amount of things you’ve been through and how long your friendship might have lasted, but at the end of the day, you have to cut bad people off from your life if they’re affecting you negatively. Because of this, I think Renton leaving his group of friends and going off on his own was justifiable especially since Begbie and Sick Boy was essentially taking advantage of their friendship with him and continually involving him in their illegal schemes even if Renton was trying to go straight. Leaving money for Spud, who seemed to be one of the better friends Renton had, was also a redeeming moment for Renton and made his decision to leave with the money more justifiable from my perspective and probably the perspective of the audience who watched the film.

All in all, I really liked the movie and how it explored addiction as well as the social dynamics of friends and how they might be bad for you. Hopefully, I’m also able to be aware when I’m put in a situation where my friends become bad for me and be able to realize and take the necessary action like how Renton was able to.

Trainspotting – Another Perspective

Trainspotting was an interesting film because it provided the viewers another perspective in the world of drugs. In our local context, drug users are often seen as violent people or people who will hurt you and while there are instances to support this, the film shows us a deeper perspective to look at it from. For example and in response to how the country sees drug users as violent, Renton, Sick Boy, and Spud were barely violent especially compared to Begbie who despite being “clean” was highly violent and aggressive. What made this perspective more interesting is that it was mostly, if not all, from Mark Renton’s own perspective. Despite the point of view being mainly Renton’s, we still see a glimpse of perspective of their own group of friends through the way the film was made, directed and shot.

The movie did not touch on what the word “trainspotting” meant, and my curiosity prompted me to search; according to collinsdictionary.com, “trainspotting is the hobby of going to railway stations and recording the number of the trains that you see.” Looking back at how perspective is given of much importance in the film, the title itself presents itself as way of looking at things. Linguistically, the term trainspotting isn’t even familiar to us here, and perhaps only to Europeans or the United Kingdom only. With this alone, we fall under the perspective of a European upon watching the film, and we are reminded of it a lot through the cultures encountered in the film and even simple slang words that we are not familiar with in the Philippines.

Other than the title and the drug users’ perspectives, the movie also relies on filmmaking techniques that use perspective to provide engaging visuals for the viewers. The film does make use of computer generated visual effects, most notably the baby in Renton’s withrawal scenes, but the more interesting visual effects were the ones that played with perspective. The first one that I am assuming to be a perspective-based visual effect is when Renton went inside the dirtiest toilet in Scotland. This visual effect was a better decision by the filmmaker to make Renton’s desparation for drugs more absorbable for the viewer compared to seeing the dirty toilet for what it was. Other than this metaphorical visual effect, the scenes that showed the group having their drug sessions had the camera moving from room to room while giving us a look at the doors and what or who were on the other side of these doors. Additionally, Renton’s overdose scene gives us a well-directed film of him falling through the ground, which I assume does not use computer generated effects but instead makes use of the set design and camera angles that give us that illusion of being high.

As I have written about above, I think that perspective played a lot in the movie. The limitations of seeing only or mostly only Renton provided us a more engaging viewing experience as opposed to stifling us and preventing us from getting clearer thoughts about the film. The film did not touch on perspective simply based on the characters but through the cinematography and the cultures encountered in it as well. Most importantly from a personal perspective, the film provided me a better view of groups of people such as the ones in the film and was given a glimpse of their motives and problems which made for an entertaining watch and social reflection.

from heroin to back and beyond

Presenting to you, a one of a kind coming of age film in relation to drugs and staying sober – Trainspotting. There may not be a literal transition of young adolescents to adulthood, but in this film, Mark Renton takes viewers on a journey through his personal growth – from heroin to back and beyond.

In the first few scenes, I was a bit confused. Something seemed too familiar. It almost seemed like I was watching part two of Schizopolis. For the first thirty minutes, cinematography and dialogue wise, the two films were quite similar. The scene where Renton is swallowed up by a toliet just to retrieve his stash of opium and where he has vivid hallucinations in his room are just as weird, or considerably even weirder, as Elmo Oxygen and Fletcher Munson. Because of this, I was not as emotionally invested in the movie. However, after a few more minutes and less Schizopolis like scenes, I lent my full attention to one of Danny Boyle’s masterpieces.

Personally, I only started to fully understand the plot when Mark Renton escapes to London for a fresh start. Before this turning point, I looked at this film as something only Steven Soderbergh would come up with.

Instead of focusing on the technical aspects of getting clean, Trainspotting delves into the social aspects. It was also able to tackle a societal issue in the 90s – the AIDS epidemic. As mentioned above, director Danny Boyle was also able to portray Mark Renton’s journey as a sort of coming of age film – from an addict to someone who actually chose life.

Mark’s group of friends, Spud, Sick Boy, Begbie, and Tommy, all affected his life one way or the other – whether a drug addict or a violent psychopath. However, only Mark wakes up and finally realizes he has to stop wasting his time and start living. When he does start his new life in London, his group of friends come back to haunt him. They have no respect for his personal space and his decision to become free of drugs, crime, and violence. For a while, they drag him back to the world of heroin, but in the end, Mark still chooses life.

Mark’s monologue in the beginning and end gave me chills. At first, Mark was telling viewers to choose life, when he himself could not. Instead, he chose to live on drugs. However, in the end, he finally aimed to get the job, the family, the fucking big television, the washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electrical tin opener, and everything he ever dreamed of.

I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?
Mark Renton, Trainspotting (1996)

As the music played in the last scene, and might I say the film’s soundtrack was absolutely iconic for their generation, I felt very triumphant for Mark. He might have lost his friends and his source of happiness, but at least now, he can live to the fullest. When he was running and reciting his monologue, he knew he was on his way to living a normal life – off to discover what it means to be high on life.

Trainspotting (1996) – Creating Characters

A lot could be debated regarding the most essential film element at a movie makers’ disposal. The issue here is that it would either depend on their specific use on a motion picture or that there is actually a general quality among most of them, be it the good or bad ones. In the case of the latter, I argue that it is character. This, however, is not to disregard the other indispensable elements. If so, why did I pick character as the most powerful?

There are three straightforward reasons. One, in most mainstream films, the audience would most likely pay attention or interest to the characters more than all the other parts of the film. Arguably, elements like the cinematography and the visual effects must “pay attention” to them. Two, film viewers pay attention to these characters, and subsequently adore or abhor them, because of how relatable it is to them through human experience. If anything, the events experienced and caused by these characters are derived exactly by genuine experiences. Last, and not the least, is that they are the primary drivers or controllers; whatever action, word and choice they make are the “tools” to direct to where the storyline rises or falls.

Trainspotting (1996) is one of those films that exemplified this the best. Here, filmmakers utilized different characters, create interaction with them, and build the plot focused on Renton, played by Ewan McGregor, from not only what he does but also what his friends do.

The structure is built with five steps.

First is the accepted status quo of Renton founded on his shortcomings of drug addiction, as expressed in the film’s most iconic quotations.

“Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?”
– Renton, Trainspotting (1996)

Then comes the first “realizations” of such predicaments, by making the character aware of it like an elephant in the room. The more apparent, perhaps the better. They show it through by surrounding him with very visceral sights like a baby walking on the ceiling, his comrades appearing mysteriously, and the dance club music intensifying with these delusions. Put them together to form one of my personal favorite scenes in the film.

Awareness of the conflict soon leads to challenging obstacles which assists in revealing the causality of it. In the first scenes of the film, we see Renton’s first attempts to come clean through setting up his own home.

“Relinquishing junk. Stage One: preparation. For this you will need: one room which you will not leave; one mattress; tomato soup, ten tins of; mushroom soup, eight tins of, for consumption cold; ice cream, vanilla, one large tub of; Magnesia, Milk of, one bottle; paracetamol; mouth wash; vitamins; mineral water; Lucozade; pornography; one bucket for urine, one for feces, and one for vomitus; one television; and one bottle of Valium, which I have already procured, from my mother, who is, in her own domestic and socially acceptable way, also a drug addict.”

– Renton while setting up his flat, Trainspotting (1996)

In fact, we saw this direction again when Renton decides to work and reside in London.

“I settled in not too badly and I kept myself to myself. Sometimes, of course, I thought about the guys, but mainly I didn’t miss them at all. After all, this was boom town where any fool could make cash from chaos and plenty did. I quite enjoyed the sound of it all. Profit, loss, margins, takeovers, lending, letting, subletting, subdividing, cheating, scamming, fragmenting, breaking away. There was no such thing as society and even if there was, I most certainly had nothing to do with it. For the first time in my adult life I was almost content.”
– Renton describing his new job in London, Trainspotting (1996)

In both cases, however, the film gives subtle hints that he himself may not have been causing most of his addiction problems. It happens when (1) one of his comrades also attempted to follow his steps to prove otherwise…

“The down side of coming off junk was that I knew I would need to mix with my friends again in a state of full consciousness. It was awful: they reminded me so much of myself I could hardly bear to look at them. Take Sick Boy, for instance, he came off junk at the same time as me, not because he wanted too, you understand, but just to annoy me, just to show me how easily he could do it, thereby downgrading my own struggle. Sneaky fucker, don’t you think?”
– Renton on Sick Boy, Trainspotting (1996)

… and (2) when a fugitive Begbie interferes in Renton’s living space.

“Renton (V.O.) – Begbie settled in in no time at all.”
Begbie opens a can of beer. Renton closes the door.
INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE BEDSIT – DAY
Renton closes his door. He is about to walk away when he heard Begbie shouting.
BEGBIE (from the bedsit) – Rents, Rents, come fucking back here.
Renton opens the door. Begbie is holding out an empty packet of cigarettes.
Look.
“RENTON – What?
BEGBIE – I’ve no fucking cigarettes.”

Begbie throws the packet down to the floor. It lands near the door. He has turned back to the television and takes a swig of beer.”

This leads to the second “realizations” that points this root cause: the negative and controlling influence of his friends. All of this leads to the open-ended resolution of the character finally choosing life, presented in the dialogue opposite to the introduction.

Conclusively, all have shown that while other film elements are essential such as dialogue, the setting, the props, among others, they all come together in presenting or “clothing” that central powerful element of narrative film: the character.

Sincerly,

JoMar Fernandez a.k.a JMCthefilmystan

Source used:

https://www.raindance.org/scripts/Trainspotting%20script.pdf