1996's "Guess the Train" is regarded as a classic by countless people, whether it is a dynamic and fast edit, or a music that is quite characteristic of sharp dance culture; or a strange and intimate atmosphere, which is the deep reason why we look back again and again.
Under the fascination of the stars and the moon, [Guess the Train] has become a cross-century cultural symbol, and it also makes us look forward to the upcoming sequel in 2017.
Eager to live
The so-called one person gets the Tao, the chicken dog ascends to heaven, and when the movie "Guess the Train" is praised by a group of young people as a god, its inspiring opening song will naturally spread around the world.
The song is called "Lust For Life", but the characters in the film never long for life, they are willing to degenerate, retreat behind life, hidden under drugs.
The reason why we associate this song with the movie is because this amazing opening monologue and the title form a strong irony.
Under thick percussion, the two protagonists run by, followed by the gloomy and cynical voice of Ivan McGregor: "Choose life, choose work, choose career, choose family." Choose a fucking big TV. "With so many choices, it's as if this life is full of possibilities.
▲ Redden's appearance shot
But when Rayden, played by Ivan, smiles at the camera, the smile is so vicious that it seems to tear up all these choices and turn them all into a "shit".
Mama Sang's little house
Then the famous song continued, and So did Redden's monologue. The feel of the song is quite sharp, but the choices in the monologue are related to the life of the middle class.
In a soccer game. "Sick Boy", "Bergbi", "Potato", "Tommy" appeared one after another, and the balls of the four people could see their personality, the sick boy was sinister, Bergbi was fierce, the potato was a little dull, and Tommy was somewhat isolated.
The editing here is quite stylized, which also shows the influence of the nineties, after Which When Redden is knocked down by a ball, the camera catches him falling to the ground at the "Mama Sang" drug room, and the monologue also comes to the time of reversal: "I choose not to live." When this sentence is read, it has pointed out the attitude of the protagonist of the play towards life.
Rebellion, subculture, this label is the projection of the youth at that time. Redden's narration continues, he is actually defending drug use, which not only helps you escape from life, but is also "cooler than a thousand ejaculations!"
▲ Through football, others also played
But there are also people who don't understand them, like Begby and Tommy, and Redden's parents. In these two voices, the confrontation unfolds, and drug use or non-drug use becomes the confrontation of this film. As a result, the next shot says to mom Sang, "I want to quit drugs!" Suck your hands again!" And the latter is just non-committal, the title of the film.
Carmen with toilet
With the previous whim of drug rehabilitation, Redden did what he said. First the door was sealed to show determination, and then a lot of necessary supplies bought from supermarkets were basically the beginning of the eight-year War of Resistance.
However, after swallowing a grain of mother's stability, he was suddenly shocked and felt the need to come back to the last high, so he cooperated with Carmen's famous song and turned his head to open the sealed door, which satirized and taught people to understand.
I believe that many addicts hold such a belief to rehabilitate from drugs, "the last bite before quitting, the last shot..." and then never quit.
Redden gets the opium suppositories, and the next episode is really smelly - the worst toilet in Scotland appears. In the novel, this paragraph is purely obscene to the protagonist, director Boyle has to find a way to show it, and all the actions after Raiden are reproductions of the toilet paragraph.
▲ Redden had to go to the "worst toilet in Scotland"
Redden's fantasy about the toilet is a golden and brilliant place, but the reality is very different, corresponding to Redden's fantasy of a good life after drug rehabilitation and the pain to be borne when quitting drugs.
Later, the suppository dropped on the toilet, which was to succeed in drug rehabilitation, but he was addicted to drugs and had to take risks; then the drug addiction was satisfied, surrounded by warm seawater, and then returned to the toilet, representing the failure of drug rehabilitation, and had to return to a bleak life.
The train is speeding, I don't know how many thousands of miles it is
The title came out, a capital "Trainspotting", such a word is really confusing, even americans who are also English-speaking countries, may not understand much.
This is also why before the film became famous, the original novel was only available in Scotland, which can be said to be a literary work with a very local color, so the task of adapting the film is actually very difficult.
When the film was screened in the United States, the most asked question by several creators was "Is there anything you can't understand?" The most answered in the end was the later bar section, when the protagonist Redden first hooked up with a girl.
Then again, about the title of the film "Guess the Train", some people later watched the movie and said that the name "Guess the Train" was for drug use, but in fact, this is just a metaphor for the language after being influenced by the movie, and it is a cultural transformation.
In the original context, guessing the train was a game that swept the Glasgow region of Scotland. Idle young people stand by the railroad tracks, and as there is a classic scene in the film, they are too bored to guess the time and destination of the next train to pass the time.
▲ Redden and sick boy spend time in the Eri Wasteland by shooting guns
The director of this film also said: "The person who pays too much attention to useless information is the train guesser, and this is the spirit of guessing the train - boredom."
Corresponding to several young people in the movie, it can also be used as this solution. They rebel against the mainstream, give up life, which is naturally boring all day long, others ask them why, they don't know it themselves, they are in a state of ignorance, so they can only use drugs and sex and a series of chaotic ways to kill time.
In the passages that follow, the protagonist and his friends repeat meaningless things.
Sick boy of the Eri Wasteland
The next few paragraphs are both The Timeen drug rehabilitation, but also the moment to introduce several friends one by one, because there are multiple protagonists in the original novel, and the film can only endure the pain of cutting love in order to refine.
The first to appear is the sick boy, who is very sinister. He watched the protagonist rehabilitate himself, and he also wanted to quit drugs, in order to anger him. Moreover, it is easy for sick boys to get poison, and it is easier to quit drugs, which is the root cause of anger.
At this time, the filming location was in the Eri Wasteland, and the heat was unbearable. According to the director, this scene was originally very long, and the two had to choose a gun, discuss how to shoot, how to play, and so on. Such a design is very nonsensical and highlights the boredom of their lives.
▲ The innocent minotaur's ass has become the target of their relief
But now it is much more streamlined, and with the sick boy's headless comments on Sean Connery, the audience will not react for a while and a half, only to think that the two people are really idle people, and the words they talk about are boundless.
In fact, the sick boy was talking about Connery's 007 at the beginning, and it was even more boring to do things, shooting the dog's ass and letting the minotaur terrier bite its owner. What is rare is that the acting skills of the two actors are natural, as if they are the sick boy and Redden in life.
Jumping potatoes
If the appearance of the sick boy stops the camera, and then drills a smell of idleness, then the potato is from a young age, and when he grows up, he can't control his brain that runs around like a madman.
The camera first cuts between Redden and Potato drinking, and unlike the sick boy's "None", Potato's boredom lies in chatting, and if you don't pay attention, he can talk to you from heaven to earth, from TV to the beach.
In the process of chatting, it is also coordinated with various limb movements, as if the limbs are going to fall apart at any time. The most absolute thing is that in the middle of his chat, you can't find any useful information, so it's still "none".
This is epitomized at Potato's interview, where the three interviewers are confused by his behavior, which also shows the dialogue between the two worlds. Potatoes come from a socially forgotten class, or this class actively chooses to deviate from the mainstream.
▲ The "boredom" of potatoes extends to the serious middle-class battlefield
The three interviewers were from the middle class, with chickens talking to ducks, forming an absolute separation from the previous speculation between potatoes and Redden, and combined with the "white sand coconut shadow" Orthodox man behind the potatoes laughing and breaking his belly.
Listen to the marginalized
At this time, the audience also found that another major feature of the film comes from the ubiquitous Redden monologue. This monologue has been heard since the beginning of the film, and almost every key plot will appear, including the two friends introduced earlier, and the monologue of the protagonist is spitting.
This also adds to the irony of the film, especially when it comes to potatoes' "heroic performance in the face of the interviewer, which is really unmatched". At the same time, the most crucial thing is that the emergence of such a voice also makes [Guess the Train] closer to the perspective of the addict, rather than the perspective of ordinary people's moral criticism.
That's why [Guess the Train] can be so different, seeing the world from the perspective of a person in the bureau is far more powerful than the judgment of a person on the sidelines.
As an addict, Redden's environment and the people he knows around him are all unknown to our world, and they form an absolute closure to us. And to understand them cannot be our own imagination, but with the help of a voice.
In fiction, the writer can summon a non-existent character through the power of words to explain, and the film must turn this character into a concrete and perceptible image. This is also the reason why the film only chooses Redden as the protagonist.
The director has also expressed his attitude and ideas, and he believes that he should not stand in the position of an ordinary person and use universal value norms to deal with this sensitive subject.
Instead, he wanted the film to carry more different voices and attitudes. [Guess the Train] is about a group of drug addicts who are rebellious and normal, but the film does not criticize much except for the slight comedy satire. Avoid sharp-tongued accusations, and there is no longer compassion for the sympathy of the tragic people, which is also the superb point of this film.
While being close, it also allows the protagonist's spit to pull away, so that the tragedy that appears later becomes nothing, and the heaviness becomes light, which is also the reason why it is different from other drug-taking movie styles at that time and even now, and its uniqueness also makes people love it more.
Honest Tommy, despicable Bergby
Two people are introduced in a row, one of which is the grumpy Bergby. The role is played by Robert Carlisle, I have to say that Carlisle's acting skills are simply super god, under his interpretation, whether it is a billiard room beating up a small fat, or a bar battle "crowd", it makes people feel that he is a friend around him, real as it is.
▲ Bergby is responsible for a strong bad in this group
The director also said later: "These actors can take the audience to places they have never been before, but they seem so familiar, and the audience is ready to go with them, not because these people's lives are cool, but because you believe that this is true, you believe in these people, they all come from real life, they take the audience to places that they don't dare to go before."
Bergbi is grumpy, lies, and conceited, and can be described as a combination of all the shortcomings of a barbarian.
In stark contrast, there is honest Tommy. While Begby is lying and fabricating his heroic deeds, Tommy confides in Redon in private. It turned out that Begby was angry with others because his ball skills were inferior, and he also specialized in three ways, which was really despicable (the same as his name).
Tommy, on the other hand, is not only honest but also does not forget about fitness, in any way, he does not belong to this morbid and depraved group, and he is the only one who rarely has shortcomings (if the sex tape is not a shortcoming).
However, later, Redden's careless essay on video tapes buried deep evil and caused Tommy to fall into hell.
Temptation (Part 1)
As with the run at the beginning, in this longer passage, the film chooses the New Order's "Temptation" song through the whole process.
Appropriate to the title of the lyrics, although there are several small lines in this paragraph, there are more or less three main lines, which are related to "temptation", and the cost after temptation is not light.
It starts out as Sick Boy and Redden watching Tommy's homemade adult shorts. At this time, Redden suddenly developed the first desire for life - sexual desire, which was also his normal reaction after drug rehabilitation, before Redden became impotent when he took drugs.
So the film smoothly arrives at the nightclub, when "Temptation" sounds, Redden is looking for prey in the corner, the sick boy hugs the left and right, and Bergbie indulges in the affair, only tommy and potatoes who share the same disease are exchanging sexual experiences. The main ones in this section are Tommy, Potatoes and Redden.
Potato confides in Tommy, his girlfriend does not want to have a relationship with him, and Tommy tells Potato about his quarrel with his girlfriend. The conversation between the two looks quite funny under the background of the music.
▲ Redden's "love" went unexpectedly well
On the other hand, Redden met his own "True Destiny Goddess", and everything seemed to naturally enter the next stage.
Temptation (Part 2)
As Redden hitched a ride on love, the other two, Tommy and Potato, also arrived at the moment of soul-destroying.
At this point, the film is interspersed between three threads: Potato and his girlfriend walk through the corridor, cut until Tommy and his girlfriend unlock, then Toyon and Alison enter the door, and after entering the door, they come to Tommy to undress...
Just as Tommy and his girlfriend are fighting fiercely, they find that the tape is missing, and potatoes on the other side are drunk and unconscious, only Raiden and Alison complete the whole action, and the climax is accompanied by the moment of scoring in the videotape, which is a comedic effect on both sides.
Tommy finds that the tape carrying his and his girlfriend's privacy is missing
The thrill of scoring goals came and went quickly, so Redden had just finished comfortable and found out the next day that the girl was a minor, and it was a crime to do so himself.
Tommy's private video tape is gone, and his life is also bad, but he is "borrowed" by his best friend, which is also intended to show that if he does not leave this group of fox friends, the protagonist's bad life will not improve.
The most tragic is the potato, incontinence on the bed sheets of his girlfriend's house a large piece, it is said that this throwing scene Boyle filmed three times, each time is not allowed to make any mistakes, so that the crew and other people are quite critical of him.
The "temptation" is over, but what remains is the heaviness of life, and as the opening narrator says, whatever you choose to live, you need to bear the hardships of these lives.
The gang fled to heroin as soon as they were upset, this time without even saying a word to Tommy, embracing the drugs.
For drug addicts, it is not because of the emptiness of life that they choose this extreme approach, but because life is too "full", "full" enough to make themselves explode, so they choose to escape.
And Redden's path to drug rehabilitation seems to have become a Möbius circle, where enlightenment and temptation always alternate at the next intersection.