I have completed "Guessing the Train" and "Guessing the Train 2" a while ago, and it feels very strange, as if twenty years have been swept away, and my mind is full of feces and urine, dazzling, The youth of the depraved, big boys, and of course the strong Scottish accent.
"Guessing the Train" tells the life of a group of heroin addicts in Edinburgh. The four male protagonists are a generation of drug addicts in Edinburgh, England, living in the bottom of garbage and enjoying themselves. Among them, Renton was rushed to the hospital due to drug overdose, and was forced to detoxify. In the end, he chose to take away a huge sum of money and betray his friends to escape from a decadent and degraded life. The film is full of immersive psychedelic and emotional, regardless of form and content, it is wild, rebellious and full of imagination. Its punk-like violent aesthetics and meticulous visual depiction of drug abuse shocked the British film industry at that time and caused considerable controversy. In 2017, "Training 2" is more like a nostalgic movie. Renton returns to his homeland, sees old friends again, has a new story, and reconciles with the past. Although it is a new movie, I can still feel the taste of 20 years ago.
Choose life, choose work, choose career, choose family, choose fucking big TV, choose washing machine, car, CD player, electric can opener, choose health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, choose low interest loan, choose house , Choose friends, choose casual clothes and matching suitcases, choose installments, three-piece suits, use a series of damn fabrics, choose DIY, and still doubt what you are doing on Sunday morning, choose to sit and look mindful Numb, a quiz show that breaks the heart, filled with fucking junk food, and finally the whole person rots to the end, giving birth to a bunch of selfish bastards in a miserable home, annoying yourself, but embarrassing, choose your future , Choose life, but why should I do such a thing? I choose not to choose life, I choose something else, why? There is no reason, there is heroin, what reason is needed?
Like the series of lines mentioned at the beginning, "Guessing the Train" is a movie about choice, about Choose Life. There are similar lines in the second part twenty years later. The difference is that they are related to the choice of that era, but they are still in the same tone. Life is just about choice. For most people, it's probably about choosing conventions, choosing growth, choosing to mature and approaching success, and choosing the so-called right path that different information channels in this world suggest to you. For Renton, who are tumbling in their feces, piss and youth, it may be that they choose to fall, choose to be corrupt, choose to take drugs, choose to enjoy, choose to be disappointed, choose to make love, choose to lose their love. Perhaps, choosing not to choose, choosing to deny, is the better choice. If you don't know what you want to do, or at least what you hate, if you don't know how to move forward in the future, you will go to the end of time in a muddle-headed manner. "Getting by, looking ahead to the day you die."
Heroin was a popular thing in that era. It was a symbol of youth belonging to a few of them. They liked Iggy Pop and fell in psychedelic, and their thoughts flew with the leaves. The handsome Sick, the skinny Renton, and the mentally retarded Spud chose drugs because of their happiness, and fell into depraved nothingness and pain. The fragile love, the life supported by the unemployment subsistence allowance, the accidental birth of a baby girl, and the unexpected death in bed, became Renton's nightmare when he was forced to detoxify. Sunshine Tommy chose drugs because of the pain of breaking up, but unfortunately died of AIDS. As for the violent Begbie, he is more willing to indulge his anger, looking for pleasure from the blood dripping.
Do they have to take heroin? It’s not necessarily “We would have injected vitamin C, if only they’d made it illegal”. It’s just to choose depraved youth. There are probably thousands of ways to degenerate. The essence seems to be a form of resistance, a more original form, More instinctively, it is similar to the form of resistance of a baby crying. Because of instinct, choosing to fall is as easy as venting sexual desire. Probably what "Shawshank's Redemption" brings is not inspiration, not everyone has extraordinary wisdom and perseverance. Instead, it bypasses and resists the operable life escape plan, stays in the system but does not forget freedom, and finds the best way to escape within the rules. As for "Guessing the Train" is more pure resistance, about youth resistance, anarchist resistance, and we don't need to make moral judgments about this resistance.
Music is changing, drugs are changing, and the world is changing. The director used surreal elements to inject this change of youth resistance into psychedelic, and used its excellent soundtrack as a needle to inject the psychedelic pleasure of high-speed racing to movie viewers: psychedelic rock in the 70s, fighting Punk, or the rhythm of a synthesizer. Renton was addicted to drugs. In order to find the moment after the pill plunged into the toilet, it was not the stench caused by excrement and urine, but a clear ocean, filled with the joy of diving deep into the sea. And when he was forced to detoxify in the hospital through various storms, the limited space was stretched infinitely, forming a corridor that magnified the fear in his heart. Tommy, who was devastated and suffering from AIDS, stood in front of Renton. Crawling slowly, and turning his pale head. The surreal description of postmodern youth is impressive.
As for them twenty years later, youth rebellion has become a mid-life crisis, but the symbols of youth are still projected on them in absurd forms, and they are dubbed "post-youth life". It seems that as long as you are alive, you can choose youth. Once betrayed the old life to seek rejuvenation, now the bad person is still bad, the lunatic is still mad, and the old age is still youthful. Life is always an endless fuck up, and we need to learn to reconcile it in chaos and resistance.
The beginning of my acquaintance with Ewan McGregor was the ascetic priest in "Angels and Demons", and the cute and cute priest in "I Love You, Morris" over 40 years old. The real obsession is the "Velvet Gold Mine", with long blonde hair, attractive eyes, gorgeous rock and roll, and the toughness in the bones revealed in the neutral. However, "Trainspotting" should be his real fame Yi department, skinny body, Guangliu hair, youth deadly smile.
Thinking of my own life, thinking of always choosing to soak in music and crying in movies for the past two years, it was just because I hated being active, so I chose not to be active. Losing is too easy, you only need to escape the blame of others, and being active is too difficult, you need to give a sense of “ought” to being active, and you should live actively, which is enough in itself to be lost. I am afraid of the sun when I am used to the gutter. The so-called peer pressure means that even seeing the active life of my peers will appear extremely dazzling, and because of the fear of dazzling, I am out of place.
Growth is also difficult. Growth is a betrayal, betrayal of decay, betrayal of purity, betraying friends and the life of Edinburgh like Renton, betraying the beautiful belief in the world that has been built up like in "Dog Thirteen". And if you choose not to grow, you will undoubtedly be betrayed by the world. Can I not choose to grow up? I don't know, but you always hate staying in the mud all your life. Perhaps plunged into the toilet is a clear ocean, but you still need some strength to pull yourself out of the cesspit.
However, it's all about choice. There is no right or wrong, only choice.
Guys!
Choose life. Choose your own fucking life.
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