Danny Boyle
Trainspotting

After committing a theft, while Renton and his friends run breathlessly through the streets of Edinburgh, a voiceover accompanies the scene…

"Choose life, choose a job, a career, choose family, a fucking big television, washing machines, cars, CD players, and electric tin openers, choose good health, low cholesterol, and life insurance, choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments, a starter home, friends, choose leisurewear and matching luggage, choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics, choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning, choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth, choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you spawned to replace yourself, choose your future, choose life… but why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life, I chose something else. The reasons? There are no reasons… who needs reasons when you've got heroin?"

In this beginning lies the essence of Trainspotting, the demolition of common morality. It's a film about which you can write everything, but also its opposite. It's a film without morals, but also educational, because it makes us understand what is good and what is bad, showing the harshness and ugliness of the life of the four "friends" addicted to drugs. The film can be summarized like this: it is a truthful description of a horrible reality that either fascinates or repulses, a reliable account of drug addiction, that does not spare the viewer the pleasure and the suffering that those who use drugs undergo. These people are not criminalized, nor are they objects of contempt, the theme is treated in a neutral manner, the film shows what life can be like with or without drugs.

The director does not provide justifications for the protagonists' self-destruction. A film that creates anguish and at the same time shows humorous scenes, to my memory, no film has ever described nihilism with such poignant humor, never a generation without ideals or dreams of revolt has been represented with such coldness. Rebellion is part of life in the growth of a young person, it must be, but is getting high really rebellion or is it the easiest way to live, without having to wipe the sweat from your brow, working hard on a construction site? Who is, who does not know the difference between the daily grind of getting up at dawn, and being a bastard going from bar to bar already drunk, and filling up with beer again? A piece of shit living off those who have chosen family, a fucking big television, washing machines, electric tin openers, etc. or a victim? The answer varies depending on how one has become an adult, are we the architects of our lives, or is life what makes us what it wants? In this film, those who use drugs may evoke disgust, but for many, their shamelessness without hesitation inspires attraction.

Danny Boyle describes the way of life of Renton, Spud, Sick Boy, and Tommy, in the same manner as an entomologist filming a documentary on insects. The plot is simple, drugs are a normal component in the life of Mark Renton and his companions. They live on the fringes of society, spending their days hunting for girls to screw, but more than anything in the pursuit of the next hit, their happiness is revealed when the "stuff" is pushed into their veins, «Try to imagine the best orgasm you've ever had, multiply it by a thousand, and you're still nowhere near it» The director also describes the suffering of detoxification, and the aimless wandering of an addict. It finally leads to the day when the "Company of the Losers" makes the deal of their life by selling a batch of drugs, but about so-called friends… The last words of the film are again: "Choose a job, a family, washing machines, cars, electric tin openers, and a fucking big television… "

A film shot with a relentless pace, there is not a scene out of place, excellent dialogues, and well-drawn characters. From the ditzy and amusing Spud to the paranoid Begbie, who says no to heroin but is an alcoholic, and whose real drug is a good fight in the venues he frequents. There are many scenes to remember, I'll just mention a couple. The surreal scene when Renton after losing his opium suppository in a disgusting toilet, to find it he dives into it, swimming in the water of the toilet bowl, which symbolically appears as an unspoiled sea. I also really liked the scene when Spud, so as not to be hired, shows up for a job interview completely out of his mind, but I was anguished by the one where the baby, child of a crazed junkie, dies amidst the dirt, in his filthy crib. This vision will later appear to Renton several times as he tries to detoxify. The music perfectly matches each scene, among others, there are artists like Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. I conclude by copying a reflection I made in distant years.

… and nothing hurts me, I can walk in a desert or in a snowstorm… I move forward with my ass against the wind… and there is no pain I don't know… and I've the cure for every ailment… and I don't want to see… and I don't suffer anymore… and I run away… no, I don't run away.