Trainspotting

“Choose life…but why would I do a thing like that?”  In Trainspotting, Renton and his friends have instead chosen heroin.  It’s not glamorous, in fact it’s downright gritty, filled with hardship and heartache.  They lie, steal and screw people over for one more hit, that ever elusive euphoric moment of pure pleasure.  Renton is starting to understand he can’t carry on like that forever and slowly tries to change his life.  But that isn’t so easy when your only friends are still shooting up.

Renton (Ewan McGregor) is our main character, a skinny junkie in Edinburgh.  He narrates with his cocky, thick Scottish accent, to give us more insight to his decisions and feelings on drug use.  He shows us his friends: Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) and Spud (Ewen Bremner) are fellow addicts.  Sick Boy is more of a leader while Spud is a sincerely lost guy, just sticking by his friends.  Tommy (Kevin McKidd) starts off as a clean cut guy who chooses working out over drugs, until his girlfriend dumps him.  And Bigbie (Robert Carlyle) gets off more on physical violence.  It’s amazing how he can carelessly instigating bar fights.

I didn’t expect this film to dabble in surrealism, but some of those moments were the most vivid and memorable.  They also help us to understand Renton’s mind under the influence.  As he fishes in a nasty toilet of his own fresh feces, we see him climb in and then swim around in crystal blue waters for what he’s looking for.  It emphasizes the importance and grandeur of looking for the drugs he just….expelled.  It’s a wonderfully gross, yet engrossing scene.

One of my favorite scenes is after Renton’s parents bring him home after an accidental overdose.  They lock him in his childhood bedroom to give him time to let the drugs wear off.  But this isn’t a simple cleanse, his mind runs wild with hallucinations fueled by his guilt: one of his friends rattling chains against his door, a baby crawling across the ceiling.  The whole scene is very intense and unsettling, making us understand Renton’s mental and physical anguish as he the drugs wear off his body.

The correlation between drugs and sex in the film is very interesting.  Characters regularly use one for the other to get their chosen highs.  For Renton, he goes between the two and he experiences the highs in very different ways.  Perhaps some of the characters, particularly Spud, whose girlfriend holds out for fun, choose drugs in place of sex.  One without the other seems to work for these guys for the most part.  Unfortunately, we see the grim results for those who mingle the two too closely for too long.

Trainspotting seems to be a very under-appreciated film.  At the Oscars, it was only nominated for adapted screenplay.  Yet, it is currently ranked at #146 on IMDB.  This film holds its own against the best picture nominees of 1996, and I can see it trading places with any of them.  All the acting is solid and believable and Danny Boyle’s direction holds such a vibrant energy, like smack running through fresh veins.

Trainspotting may not be for everyone.  We watch these guys do some hard drugs, nearly waste away into their high energy lifestyle and see some disturbing images that could make the most far gone sober up immediately.  For a film fan, it is one to seek out.  It’s considered one of the best British films, and I believe it is very accessible for most Americans.  This film helped project both Boyle and McGregor into star status.  The quick editing, high energy actors, lively sets all just add up to an unforgettable film experience.

“This was to be my final hit, but let’s be clear about this.  There’s final hits and final hits.  What kind was this to be?”

127 Hours

If you look in my car right now, you’ll find a sweatshirt, scarf, heavy gloves, two filled water bottles, flashlight, first-aid kit, road atlas, trail mix and those things that you can break and shake to keep your hands warm.  I live by the old scout motto: Be Prepared.  The closest theater showing 127 Hours is about an hour’s drive away.  There is currently 27 inches of snow predicted over the next two days, so I took the drive today.  Sometimes, no matter how prepared you think you are, circumstances can change in an instant and you find yourself faced with moments that can make or break all that you have become.

Directed by Danny Boyle, 127 Hours is based off the real life story of Aron Ralston, a lone mountain climber who didn’t tell anyone where he was going, got his arm caught under a boulder in an isolated canyon and survived by cutting it off with a pocket knife.  If I just spoiled the end for you, I apologize, but you must have been living under a rock.  Pun completely intended.

James Franco portrays Aron as an energetic and charismatic lone wolf.  He packs for his weekend trip while listening to a voicemail his mom left, but never calls her back.  The only human contact we see him have in the present is with two young ladies lost in the park.  Coming off a little strong and creepy at first (I mean, two girls approached by one guy covering his face with a bandanna, sunglasses and a hat in the middle of nowhere, we’re taught to be cautious), Aron shows them an adrenaline junky’s dream entrance to a beautiful canyon swimming hole.  They invite him to a party, complete with a giant inflatable Scooby-Doo, and part ways.

While stuck in the canyon, Aron wonders if these two girls will be the last two people he will ever meet.  He has plenty of time to think about his mortality, his lack of rations and devise a few unsuccessful plans for escape.  With his handheld video camera, he keeps a log, explaining the situation, his location and asking authorities to give the footage to his parents as a recorded goodbye.  As his hours wear on, Aron’s mental state is just as much in jeopardy as his physical.

It’s the little things that really help Aron carry on.  Seeing a familiar raven fly over him every morning and feeling that fifteen minutes of beautiful sunshine is rejuvenating to his body and spirit.  But most of all, it is the desire to live, be with loved ones and be part of that human connection more than he ever has before that drove him to make the painful choice for survival.

In that theater, with two other strangers, each alone, I cried, I chewed my hand to keep from screaming and at one point, feared I would vomit.  It was amazing.  I know there are plenty out there who scoff and complain that it took forever to get to the amputation and then it was over too quick.  The film is not about losing an arm.  Or gore, or meeting hot chicks in a canyon.  It’s about the will to survive and the importance of human connection.  We all have our favorite people, it’s important to stay in touch with them.  In the end, we’re all part of humanity, all here together and live to be connected.

When the credits started rolling, my two lone movie companions exited with no acknowledgement of another presence.  I casually dabbed my eyes with my sleeve, pulled my grocery list from my pocket and wrote the most important thing to do later: Call Lucas – wish him good luck for tomorrow.

On the drive home, the roads blissfully spotless and my mind full of the most important grocery list items, I had forgotten about one stretch of road that hadn’t seen salt or plow in days.  Going northbound, you see it coming in plenty of time to slow down, but southbound, you pop over a hill and it’s right there.  At fifty-five miles per hour.  I felt my eyes widen, my hands grip the wheel.  There was oncoming traffic to my left and to my right were flashing lights.  Police next to a flipped, crumpled car.  Any sudden movements could easily wind me, and possibly others, with a similar fate.  As the flashing lights whipped past my windows, I coasted and I took a breath, “Don’t lose it.”  I could feel the slick underneath my tires, but my car stayed miraculously straight.  It was only a simple close call, nowhere near the heroics of Ralston, but life is life.  It’s all we have.  And tonight, it has never felt so good to get those most important items crossed off my grocery list.

“Mom, I love you. I wish I’d returned all of your calls, ever.”

If The Academy chooses a an uplifting film about the amazing strength of the human spirit, 127 Hours will win the Oscar for Best Picture.

Slumdog Millionaire

Who would have ever imagined such a great film coming off the basis of a cheesy game show like Who Wants to be a Millionaire?  The story is about a modern day underdog about to go for the final question.  Since he’s an uneducated young man from the slums of Mumbai, it’s assumed he cheated.  But the film gives the audience a chance to decide on their own, and opens the film asking them How did he do it?  Our choices are a) He Cheated b) He was Lucky c) He’s a Genius and d) It is written.  We won’t know the answer until the end.

The men running the game show have already locked in their answer: a) He Cheated.  They brutally interrogate Jamal (Dev Patel), demanding to know how he got the answers.  As they look back at the tape, we see a chapter of Jamal’s life as it relates to how he knew the answer to each question.

We are taken back to Jamal’s childhood in the slums with his older brother Salim (Madhur Mittal).  These images of children running through the slums, flashes of color and light, drums beating faster than their bare feet and the camera moving as uninhibited as these children are amazing.  It’s a piece of film making that feels revolutionary and uplifting, even as these children are faced with some of the harshest conditions.

The film lets us easily understand Jamal’s life, something I wasn’t expecting given the global and social differences.  We see his crowded classroom, where there is not much learning.  We see the violence that leaves him and Salim orphaned.  We see him meet Latika (Freida Pinto), forge a bond with her at an early age and then have to leave her for survival.  The story is not told or explained to us, which is perfect because Jamal is a quiet young man, not the type to narrate much.  What is shown is to put the pieces together and it make perfect sense.

As the story grows closer to the present, we see that Jamal’s reason to go on the show is not for the money, but to reach out to Latika, who has fallen under circumstances that can’t allow them to be together.  I’d rather not spoil anymore of the wonderful plot.

One of the greatest things about this film, is that it leaves you energized, happy and wanting to dance along to the ending credits.  With Slumdog’s recent winning predecessors (No Country for Old Men, The Departed, Crash) feeling like gloomy downers, this is a great change of pace.  Rather than sticking a finger in the the wounds of our world, it’s like a fresh band-aid after a skinned knee.

But some people don’t like this film because of the harsh situations the children are seen in.  Even worse, some of the child actors were really from the slums of India and after filming went right back.  It’s a very sad reality, both on and off screen.  Nevertheless, I hope you see Slumdog Millionaire, for the spectacular narrative style of Danny Boyle, to believe that a story centered around a game show can be satisfying and to gain more global perspective for many children in India.

“If it wasn’t for Rama and Allah, I’d still have a mother.”