Trainspotting was released
in 1996, and certainly then and in the subsequent years I know I watched it
quite a few times. On this particular then-15/16-year-old it made an
impression.
Hard hitting. Real.
Instructive. Tense. Well crafted. Loud. Cool. Brilliant.
Looking back, those
are some of the ideas and impressions I have of the film but in the years
since the mid-late 90s I don’t think I have seen Trainspotting more than once. Twice, perhaps.
With the sequel
pending and a re-watch scheduled, this month I tried but could not really
remember much about the original film. I had strong visual impressions of a
couple of characters and a handful of key moments but little more than that.
Certainly the storyline had become lost to me among those main elements – the
music, the clubs, the pain and the drugs. But something else in that film had spoken
to me. At the time it had felt so significant, yet whatever magic Trainspotting had over us 90s teens,
now, as an adult, grown and changed over again since then, I could no longer
grasp it.
In fact many of
those original commands that as a young teenager had seemed so old and far
away – “Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big
television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical
tin openers […] Choose your future. Choose life.” – were now a very real part of life (except for
my television which is modestly sized at best and the compact disc players
which 20+ years on are just about obsolete).
2017. Me. Older.
More grounded in life. Sadly aware of the harsh, sick, contradictive and often
hard-to-stomach parts of reality that along with the lighter side form life.
Real life, which my 16-year-old self had but little exposure to. How would a film
that was, in its time, poignant, symbolic and significant, in a real if
indefinable way, speak to me 20 years on?
On re-watching I
was surprised to discover that I had remembered the story, and far more of it
all than I thought. That magic was real; Trainspotting
evidently did speak to me back then and leave a much clearer and
longer-lasting impression than I thought. In all its grim, gritty, grainy
truths, amidst the swearing, the violence and the filth there lurks a wonderful
study of human behaviour, relationships and survival, which is just as true of
today as it was of then.
There are
moments when you laugh. There are moments when you cringe. There are moments
when you turn away from the television but even turning away is not enough to
banish the horror that is being presented. There is no getting away from it.
And should there be? Has the lust for life truly gone? Should we face it
anyway?
Those who know
me or who have read my blog before will know that I am always dubious of a
sequel. Yes, of course, there have been many brilliant sequels over the years.
Specific ones. You know which ones are exceptional. There have also been an
awful lot more terrible sequels – and re-makes, while we’re on the subject –
which should never have been made at all, and I always fear a bad sequel, so the
prospect of T2 Trainspotting after
all these years rings a few bells, although seeing the original line up still
involved and knowing it is in Danny Boyle’s capable hands reassures me no end
even if I once again cannot understand the title.
The end of Trainspotting left 90s Renton certainly
more hopeful than the beginning found him, although his path was far from easy or clean.
Did he grow up to be just like us, with our 9-5s and indexed pensions, getting
by, looking ahead to the day we die? I have purposefully avoided any discussion
of or spoilers about the sequel – I prefer to make my own first impression –
but having today been reminded of how good a film was presented to me in 1996,
I look forward, with glee and apprehension, to what the new instalment will
bring.
I also look back and I wonder… In
another twenty years will I once again be inspired to choose my
future and choose life? Will I once again reach back, holding only vague
memories, and find much deeper impressions left behind by an inexplicable magic?
Elloise Hopkins.
