best and worst qualities of being human - Under The Skin

What are the best and worst qualities of being human ?   Which of these does the film show ?You can write a list or a piece of continuous writing.

The film portrays many qualities of being human, but for me it mainly shows the worst qualities. Firstly it shows humans do not have any self-control when it comes to sexual desires and this causes them to rape or murder to get what they want. The film shows graphically how evil humans really can be when the desires take over them. Another negative quality is that humans sometimes to not pay attention to what is happening and are often blind to the evil and bad things happening around them when they are focusing on one thing, ignoring everything else. The film also shows that everyone has a bit of evil in them whether they give it or receive it. In the film we do not see any signs of remorse or feelings of regret for what each character has done which shows humans are quite heartless in a way if they are not hurting themselves but others, instead. 

Some of the good qualities the film portrays are the that people can gain emotions and empathy no matter the situation they are put in or their background, this is because everyone feels pain and sadness. At the end of the film the spectators are made to feel a bit of pity for the main character, who in fact killed or sexually assaulted a lot of people, even after everything she has done. This could symbolise that everyone can be forgiven no matter what, which is a positive human quality as everyone is able to forgive they just have to have the courage to do so. 

Trainspotting and Binary Oppositions

How useful has an ideological critical approach been in understanding the binary oppositionsof Trainspotting ?  


Transporting is set during the late 80's and filmed in the 90's, with an underlying theme of change and evolution in society. You can see Renton is ahead of his friends in the way he thinks and reacts to the things going on at the time. We can see this in the club scene where 90's music is being played and he is dressed much more modern than everyone else and seems to be more comfortable with the changes in the era. 
We also see him as almost alienated when he chooses to move to London in hope of success whilst everyone around him stays in Scotland with no dreams or future. This symbolises that in the 90's the only hope of success  is if you move to a big, busy city. 
There is a strong lack of employment in Scotland at the time, we can also see this as we never see the group working we just see one of them applying to a job in hope to get benefits, and not actually to get the job. The viewers may assume that Tommy is working as he seems to have a stable life unlike his friends, but we never actually see him working or get told if he does. 
During this time most people are just doing heroin and getting AIDS as it is a time of decline in industry so most people wouldn't even think of getting a job, especially in Scotland.  This shows lack of hope and future beyond the grimy apartment they live in.
New Labour is the only thing we see going on at the time which made people feel optimistic or at least a bit upbeat as a lot of changes were happening. 
Margaret Thatcher in the film portrays the message of selfishness as when Renton moves to London the only job he can get is as a estate agent as it is the only job which you could thrive from. A quote to describe Thatcherism would be "greed is good" which ties in to the end of the film where Renton becomes a very selfish character when he stole all the money and fled. 
Throughout the film we see the binary opposite of past vs future as there is so much change between the 80's and 90's, yet we only see much of the 90's changes during the London scenes. 
We also see friendship vs betrayal, where Renton gets Tommy hooked on heroin and causes him to catch AIDS. This states that Renton is a bad friend for getting him hooked on it as a good friend wouldn't do that. This is almost a betrayal as he doesn't get AIDS even if he has been doing it for much longer. Furthermore, even when Tommy is dying he still gives him money to get more heroin which hints feelings of regret and pity. 

Trainspotting analysis

TRAINSPOTTING : ANALYSIS OF SECOND HALF

Analyse how film form is used  to explore  the ideology, messages and issues  of the film
 ( friendship, betrayal, escape , family life, alienation, addiction , past v future , masculinity , responsibility v freedom, individuality v society, etc. ).

You should focus here on the second half of the film and on Tommy's narrative and fate and Renton's attempts to escape and his final betrayal. Look at how film form is used to guide audience response and alignment in key scenes.

In the scene with Renton and Tommy we can see a close sense of friendship even though we know that realistically it shouldn't be like that and that is is quite ironic. Renton got Tommy hooked on heroin which then ended up causing him to get AIDS. 

From this scene and the first scenes where we see Tommy we can see a drastic change in his character.  In the beginning of the film he was playing football, enthusiastic to climb the mountain, having sex with his girlfriend, was employed and overall was very active unlike the rest of his friends which looked like addicts and failures next to him as he seemed to have his life together. Now in this scene we can see he is an addict too like they were, while Renton stands there and isn't addicted anymore as he can go on and off of heroin without it affecting him anymore. This comes across as quite unfair and almost as a betrayal of friendship, because he allowed Tommy to try heroin and now suddenly he has AIDS, whilst Renton has been doing it for a very long time and he hasn't caught it. 

Even though Renton should feel guilty and Tommy should feel betrayed, during this shot they appear to be getting along quite well. Renton gives Tommy money which could express his guilt and a way to be forgiven, while Tommy is just happy that he received the money and doesn't seem to be feeling any hatred towards Renton. 

There is a strong sense of depression and sadness in the dim lighting of the rough apartment. In earlier scenes we could see the same apartment, just we didn't really focus on how depressing it really looks as we were more focused on the addiction and the heroin going into their veins. 

A blue glow in seen in the corridor in the scene where the viewer discovers that the baby is dead whilst the mum is screaming. This glow gave the apartment some colour to make it look a bit less dead, even if blue is a colour that symbolises sadness which is what was about to be felt by the viewer, which could be as if the light was foreshadowing it. 

The lack of music makes the viewers focus on the apartment with diegetic sounds which make the atmosphere quite tense and unsettling. The apartment also looks quite specious and empty, filled with a feeling of death.  The silence makes the viewer pay more attention to the little actions or movements of the characters. We are used to having a beat or music all the way through the film so in these rare occasions we feel as if something important is going to happen.