Trainspotting [Blu-ray + Digital Copy]

I love crazy off-putting movies so this one was really up my alley.

I hadn't seen this for many years and decided to watch without subtitles. It was a good decision because stylistically it's such a piece of art that it can just wash over you, even if you don't understand the accent through much of it. Subtitles detract from the visuals and this movie is a visual feast. An incredibly sad, funny and disturbing movie.

To be blunt, this is not an easy film to watch. I took the chance because of the brilliance of the director, Danny Boyle, who has helmed such cinema classic as "Slumdog Millionaire", "Sunshine", "127 Hours" and "28 Days Later". Slumdog is the first Bollywood movie to be a hit in Hollywood. Sunshine is one of my favorite SciFi films on the 2000's, 28 Days Later is mentioned with the best Zombie movies on nearly every list of best Zombie movies and even 127 Hours manages to make that well known troll, James Franco, look decent and like an A-lister. Let's face it, Danny Boyle has the golden touch.Based on that AND the fact that Trainspotting is getting it's own sequel called "Porno", I decided to give Trainspotting a shot. I do not normally watch movies about drug addiction. It hits too close to home and I don't find it funny. Nobody comes into this world saying proudly "When I grow up, I want to be addicted to heroin." The thought of having to rob people just so you can buy drugs so that when you wake up in the morning, you have your morning fix. All that just so you don't start off the day sick. Or that you steal from family and friends until you have no family and no friends, to me, that is depressing and I tend to watch movies that lift my spirit, educate me or scare the hell out of me. I justified that this one met criteria #2 and #3.Like I said, this film is not easy to watch. You are bombarded with images that transcend visceral discomfort. You may well get sick just from watching. As he has shown again and again, Danny Boyle is brilliant, but I would prefer not to watch his vision of Ewan climbing into the grossest commode in the long history of cinema (well done, Scotland!). The thing is it does not condescend or patronize. It exists and I will never watch that scene again.I found this movie disgusting and brilliant. How you will take it, I suppose, depends on where you are in the world and what your experience has been personally or perhaps with a family member and their relationship to addiction, intervention, confrontation, tough love and no love. Addiction is a terrible thing. Trying to capture it on film is auspicious. I applaud and curse your efforts. Now go to A&E and watch the last season of "Intervention"

Danny Boyle’s 1996 film, “Trainspotting,” adapts Irvine Welsh’s 1993 novel of the same name. It stars Ewan McGregor as Renton, Ewen Bremner as Spud, Jonny Lee Miller as Sick Boy, Kevin McKidd as Tommy, Robert Carlyle as Begbie, and Kelly Macdonald as Diane. The story focuses on the main characters amid Edinburgh, Scotland’s youth drug culture of the early 1990s as they party, abuse heroin, try to get clean, and seek some sort of meaning. Despite their attempts to kick the habit, Renton, Sick Boy, and Spud all relapse and just barely avoid serious consequences. Unfortunately, Tommy is not so lucky. Boyle’s style uses surrealism to enhance the black-comedy subject matter, with humor in the darkest moments. Frequent fourth-wall breaks include narration and humorous captions, further heightening Boyle’s style. A great, meditative, stylistic film with a phenomenal cast.

Trainspotting is an extraordinarily well crafted film in terms of the various elements of film technique- lighting, sound, acting, screenplay, dialogue, color, composition, camera and editing. The theme is fresh. Youth is a stage that is fraught with danger in testing the waters, and rites of passage, a stage that in modern western culture has no prearranged stage or ceremony. Neither are there role models nor family. The parents are out to lunch although they do their best- who doesn't? Volatile, sensitive Youth is for all practical purposes alone, dangerously alone, with no boundaries or self-control. Renton, our hero, does heroin. His unsavory pal does liquor and people. Self-afflicted damage vs damage to others is an under current theme of Trainspotting. Money is everywhere, as are drugs, those of discontent housewives, and those found in bars, as well as illegal ones. Self-medication is rampant, stylized (not glorified) in the film. Brilliant color schemes and set design hark back to Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange yet add something new and different. Neglect of youth is generational and a threat to young life and society. Theme is brilliantly expressed via the superb acting of Ewan MacGregor and all the others. Nothing is left to chance, no detail too unimportant to convey, in the brilliant directing work of Danny Boyle.The editing conveys the restless pace of angst-ridden young heroin addicts, along with the brilliantly selected score by Bowie and Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed, among others. In the opening scene alone, all the elements of film work together to present theme and introduce characters: Renton colliding with a moving car, grinning with bold mischief when he realizes he has triumphed over death; Sick Boy and Alison swooning with ectasy when they shoot up, the gaudily colored set vs the reality of the shabby drug house and neglected baby of young parents who are too busy trying to escape from reality to care for the one they love the most. All is incredibly and expertly choreographed to Bowie's and Iggy Pop's title track. Even the voice-over narration by Renton works remarkably well, a feat in and of itself, given the sorry track record of most film narrations. This is a tragic story, and far from "glorifies" hard drug abuse. It is also rich with blackly humorous dialogue, acting and camera work- the "worst bathroom in Scotland "scene, for instance. The film is visually stunning, poetically inspiring and meticulously directed. And it raises a few more questions about the values of society than it answers, which is what any decent work of art should do.

Awesome

Great value

A black comedy-drama that has become a modern classic; I wasn't an immediate fan of this when it came out, but there was a vibe among my colleagues about it – some of the production was done in the building next to our studios and one of my good friends was an extra in one scene. I've come to appreciate it as the great film it is.It's a gritty, surreal and at times outrageously funny film – the memorable outdoor scene with Renton`s rant containing the line “Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized BY” always gets a wry laugh from us.This 2-disc set has a commentary, deleted scenes and cast & crew featurette on disc one (for some reason the English subtitles fail to load on my disc – I don't know if this is a fault with this edition or just my copy).The second disc has a selection of “then and now” interviews looking at aspects of the production. No subtitles are available.A film that should be in any serious film buff's collection.

ottimo

Having bought the original DVD away back in 1999 (in the old-style transparent plastic case and everything), I have to say I was aprehensive about paying the extra money for the extra scenes and interviews. However, it was well worth it.To recap, Trainspotting follows the lives of three junkies (Renton, Sick Boy and Spud) and a psychopath (Begbie) in Edinburgh (although quite a lot of the film is actually shot in my home town of Glasgow). Having recieved a mixture of acclaim and controversy when it was released, those who make the effort to watch it will realise it is not about glamorising drugs. It is essentially about the break up of friendships between men who have been pals since school and whose lives decay in a furore of drink, violence, sex, and drugs. It also makes an important statement of how mundane junkies' lives are.The most disturbing aspect of this film is actually the amount of humour: from the bookmaker's toilet to the psychopath Begbie, quite simply a nutter, to use a nice vernacular phrase. Also look out for Sick Boy's great impressions of Sean Connery.The extras on the DVD are great and a perfect length. Various missing scenes are included on the first disc. On the second disc, there is a mixture of interviews (including one with the author of the book, Irvine Welsh), and good behind-the-scenes material, including some nice multi-angle material.Admirers of Trainspotting will have already appreciated its pulsating and eclectic soundtrack: from Lou Reed's 'Perfect Day' to Sleeper's cover of 'Atomic'; from Iggy Pop's 'Lust For Life' to 'Habanera' from Carmen. This DVD explains the choice of sound, as well as other aspects such as visuals and colour, and was interested to find out the music is designed to move the audience from the 1980s where the story begins to the 1990s. Indeed, Renton, the hero (?) of the film begins as a person with his mind stuck in the era of Iggy Pop, before eventually waking up to the 1990s with Pulp and Damon Albarn. Incidentally, also look out for the vox-pops of Albarn at the Cannes film festival on the second disc, as well as the likes of Oasis and Ewan McGregor himself.This a film which deals with a controversial subject in a perfect manner with an excellent cast, great visuals, and a racing sountrack. ***** Five Stars! *****