Trainspotting
If you think about it in Venn diagrams, then “cult drug movie” and “good drug movie” is the same set, and it’s the intersection between “cult movies” and “drug movies”. If a drug movie is any worth at all, it becomes cult. Just like for “Requiem for a Dream”, “Naked Lunch”, “Drugstore Cowboy” or “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, people take these movies showing how much drugs can mess up and end up glorifying it. Maybe this works for “Naked Lunch” and its fascinating imagery, but in the case of the other films, I am surprised anyone in their right mind could possibly feel inspired to take drugs upon seeing that.
“Trainspotting” is the most extreme example of such a film. It shows how these people’s lives are ruined, yet radiates the coolness that easily turns it into “cult”. However, even more so than “Drugstore Cowboy”, it features more devastation than I have ever seen in any drug film – it shows a dead baby. Is it just me, or is the death of a most innocent person about the most horrible thing that can happen with drug abuse? While it is suggested that the baby may have died from “simple” SIDS, in the story itself it only makes sense that it was utter negligence. No matter how predictable it was, the sight of the dead child was so terrible that I didn’t even cry.
Let me tell you something about pain thresholds. When I went into labor, I quickly reached the point where the pain was stronger than anything that preceded it (and I was in pain for quite awhile). I lied around, complaining about my fate and hoping for it to be over. Then the pain was so strong that I had to use all my concentration to take the next breath. By the end, the pain eradicated all reason in mind and the only thought I had was “I am going to die” repeated over and over. Only then my true pain threshold was reached, and the epidural helped me getting back into the “damn this hurts like hell but I am not crazy anymore” region. Even after delivery, all kinds of pains are still awaiting you but you think “hey that’s tolerable pain”.
Similarly, there are a few things in life that would hit you emotionally that go beyond the threshold of pain endurance, and no tears in this world could make you feel better. In “A Quiet Life”, a book I read recently, the main character suddenly turns quiet and stiff when she is faced with a big problem, in her words she roboticizes. “Damn this hurts like hell” equates crying, “I am going to die” equates robotization. When something is so big that I couldn’t stand seeing it, I roboticize. The sight of a little thing like that dying is about the most devastating thing I have seen on screen, it’s worse than the atrocities in “Nordwand” or “Come and see”.
I have read a few articles on “Trainspotting” after seeing the film, all of which mention the death of the baby due to negligence with a mere subsentence. To these reviewers, it’s part of the druggie life and just one of many screw-ups in the film. To me, it is not and will probably always remain the most relevant aspect in the film. It made “Trainspotting” more intense than any of those other drug films, and perhaps in some way also more interesting. But I won’t be able to see this film with any other eyes than the ones of a mother.
Since I completely failed to write about anything else than the shocker scene of the film, here’s a hail of bullets for it:
- Spud is the best character in the film, of course. He’s perhaps one of the reasons why the film turned into cult, the concept of the naive, lovable screw-up who couldn’t hurt a fly. I was especially touched by the end of the film where he cries upon seeing Renton leaving.
- I am shocked to see Ewan McGregor so skinny, and so daring too. Somehow I always associate him with lame Hollywood romances or blockbusters – what a sell-out.
- It’s certainly hard to turn a short story collection into a film, but I was a little sad that the character of Diane was so inconsequential. She seemed so promising but ended up doing nothing after all.
- If “Trainspotting” is perceived as one of the best films from the British island… then the film industry is doing pretty bad indeed. But from what I can see, the UK has a rather good track record of good TV shows.
- The most amusing scene in the film is probably Tommy dying from toxoplasmosis. The film is actually best at its black-comedy-like scenes.