The acid house

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Movie
German title The acid house
Original title The acid house
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 1998
length 111 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Paul McGuigan
script Irvine Welsh
production David Muir ,
Alex Usborne
music Dan Mudford
camera Alasdair Walker
cut Andrew Hulme
occupation

Actor in The Granton Star Cause

Actor in A Soft Touch

Actor in The Acid House

The Acid House (reference Title Acid House ) is an existing three loosely connected episodes British film directed by Paul McGuigan in 1998. It is based on three short stories from Irvine Welsh's book The Acid House . The first story The Granton Star Cause stars with Stephen McCole , Maurice Roëves (who plays the connecting link in all three stories) and Garry Sweeney , in the second story A Soft Touch with Michelle Gomez and Kevin McKidd and in the final Story The Acid House with Ewen Bremner , Martin Clunes and Jemma Redgrave .

Welsh, who also provided the template for the Scottish drama Trainspotting with his novel of the same name , also wrote the screenplay for the film and played a minor role. In the film, as in Trainspotting , the lines between reality and surrealism are blurred . The stories are about the bleak existence in a shabby estate in Edinburgh, where people want to escape the wretchedness of their lives with excessive drug use.

action

The Granton Star Cause

The life of the young Brit Boab Coyle collapses within a very short time. First you humiliate him on the phone, then the soccer-obsessed phlegmatic is kicked out of the amateur soccer team by the coach. Then his father puts him in front of the door and his girlfriend Evelyn, with whom he moved in at short notice, breaks up with him. Boab takes his frustration out on a phone booth, is arrested and beaten up by the police, and then ends up in jail for one night. The next day he loses his job. Coyle goes to a pub and gets drunk. There he meets a male person who claims to be God and also calls himself that. He accuses Coyle of wasting his life, insults him and then passes the judgment that he will now be turned into a housefly in order to be able to take revenge on the people who have turned his life upside down. With a loud growl, Coyle flies to the places where, in his opinion, one has played badly with him and is sometimes even recognized. His thoughts of revenge drive him to inconspicuously distribute poison to the appropriate people. Boab gets his revenge, but has to die at the hand of his mother of all places. This is the expected end of a lazy, apathetic guy who wasn't even a good housefly.

A soft touch

Johnny is a gullible young man who marries Catriona, a sloppy person who is pregnant. He doesn't know or doesn't want to know that she slept with most of the male guests present at her wedding. The male guests are also grateful that Johnny sees himself as the father of Catriona's child. Even after the marriage, Catriona does not stop cheating and taking advantage of her husband and would rather spend her nights in the city than at home with her husband and the child who has now been born. When a new neighbor, the psychotic, unemployed Larry, moves into the house, he quickly becomes a lover of the insatiable young woman. While Johnny takes care of his daughter Chantal, Catriona and Larry have fun on the upper floor, screaming loudly and without any consideration. Together they make Johnny's life hell.

The acid house

Football hooligan Coco Brice is on an LSD trip on a rainy night when he is struck by lightning. He mysteriously switches consciousness to that of a baby who is about to be born in a passing ambulance. The baby of the middle class couple Rory and Jenny, on the other hand, slips into the body and mind of Coco. This suits Coco's infantile friend very much, who has always wanted to raise him and influence him in her favor. Coco is now with his yuppie parents, who are shocked to find out that their precious baby is speaking in disturbing street slang. In his role as a baby who wants to be breastfed, Coco watches his parents disappear into the bedroom. When the mother later undresses, the “baby” looks at her in a Freudian manner. If it is nursed gently, it will not fail to have an effect on the lustful demon child in Jenny's newborn baby. Since Coco can already speak to his mother as a baby, he can persuade her to take him to the pub he used to visit so that he might find the real me there.

production

Production notes

The film was produced by Picture Palace North in collaboration with Umbrella Productions and Channel 4 . The film was shot in Glasgow and in Strathclyde , a region in the west of Scotland , around the Firth of Clyde , also in Edinburgh , in Pilton in Scotland and in Leith , a district of the Scottish capital Edinburgh.

Actors Ewen Bremner and Kevin McKidd also starred in Trainspotting . Welsh, who wrote the script for The Acid House himself, assured that the storylines contained in his short stories had been strictly adhered to and that he had been helped to maintain the partly incomprehensible Scottish slang (which this time is subtitled). The roles played by Maurice Roëves as god, drunken neighbor and priest were offered to Sean Connery, but were turned down by him. Originally, the three stories were supposed to be shot by three different directors. When Welsh and the producers saw Paul McGuigan's first wacky story, The Granton Star Cause , they turned the entire project over to him.

Film music

publication

The film had its cinema premiere on June 3, 1999. It was also presented at various festivals before and afterwards:

It was also published in Australia (1998), the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Estonia, South Korea, Turkey, Switzerland (German region), Poland, the Czech Republic and Italy (1999). In Spain, Japan (Tokyo), Norway, France, Argentina and Iceland in 2000, in Mexico in 2001 and in Peru in 2002. In Germany the film was released on June 3, 1999.

It has also been shown in Bulgaria, Russia and Serbia. The film had the working title The Granton Star Cause . On November 12, 2007, Senator Home Entertainment (distributed by Universum Film) released the film on DVD with a German soundtrack.

reception

criticism

The lexicon of international films ruled that there were three "very different content, style and quality" episodes. “Overall” the film is “more authentic and true to the original” than the film adaptation of Trainspotting . Especially the second episode of the film is convincing.

Stephen Holden wrote in the New York Times The working philosophy of the Scottish slum dwellers, which Paul McGuigans broached in his film could be reduced to the slogan: "It is nice to be cruel." The early insight into human cruelty when you are at the bottom Living on the edge of the social ladder is the only way to survive meanness and humiliation, the director shows in these three short stories. With a script by Welsh, the new film (according to Trainspotting ) is even more difficult than its predecessor, but at the same time too shocking and repulsive to be funny. Holden said the film lacks the sociological depth of its predecessor. Sex is violent and sadomasochistic, the birth of a child is hell and all tenderness a ridiculous, self-deceptive sentimentality, the film wants to suggest.

Edward Guthmann's Chronicle Staff review said the film was raw, rude, and as violent as a shot of methamphetamine . It is an explosion of manic energy in the form of a film and the sensational debut of director Paul McGuigan, a photographer and documentary filmmaker. Like Trainspotting , The Acid House portrays the Scottish underclass with evil, surreal humor. The characters are not only rough, caustic and callous, the film even seems to work, although it snubbed all the implicit rules of cinematic good taste. Gutmann went on to explain that if someone less talented than McGuigan directs such a clone of films, it is usually bankrupt. McGuigan is such an explosive talent, blessed with so much courage and imagination, that The Acid House is enhanced by his cheek rather than being cheaper.

David D. O'Leary's rating for filmvault was different, however, he said that unfortunately this trilogy of shaggy stories couldn't keep up with the drug-ridden life stories from Trainspotting , Danny Boyle's masterpiece. Regarding the first story, The Granton Star Cause , O'Leary said that unfortunately, Welsh's gritty humor dominated this black Kafka comedy of love, football, and religion, and that only those who would appreciate a good sick joke could laugh at it. As for the second story, A Soft Touch , O'Leary said it was more down-to-earth, but still unsatisfactory. This is where McGuigan's lack of experience as a dramatic director makes itself felt, unable to drive the story to dramatic climaxes. In the cover story of the book The Acid House , selected as the centerpiece of the film , the limited budget of the film, which is noticeable throughout, becomes particularly clear, since the story, which is strongly based on special effects, turns out to be very cheap. Overall, it can be stated that this film was simply made cheaper and less skillfully than Trainspotting and McGuigan simply did not have the cinematic talent of his predecessor Danny Boyle. Despite many stylistic elements (and a few of the same actors) The Acid House is nothing more than a weak version of Boyle's cult classic.

The Anamorphic.in page said the film had some brilliant moments. The first story, The Granton Star Cause , was performed before the film got going and you could feel Boab's pain and laugh about it, it was all over again. A soft touch is the best of the three stories. Welsh on the big screen, wonderful! Overall, the actors couldn't have convinced, especially the actress who played Coco's girlfriend was not convincing, not to mention the creepy-looking mechanical baby. All in all, the film is satisfactory, if not the best in Welsh and certainly not anywhere near Trainspotting . But if you like Wales, the film is worth it.

Josefina Sartora from Cineismo did n't like the film much and stated succinctly that The Acid House is not Trainspotting , whose fame precedes the film because both have a common origin, namely the author Irvine Welsh. The triptych is a long lamentation about the state of the Scottish working class, in which the individual sees no way out, neither in terms of work, nor in love, nor in his identity, not even in the role of a father and not even in football, the greatest all of his passions, with which the film begins and ends. Guigan shot his debut film without any subtlety, which the typically bizarre and pretentious camera already suggests.

Derek Winnert said these were more confused stories from the Scottish town of Leith, a surreal triptych. It's hard to imagine, but it's even more extreme here than in Trainspotting, which creates a queasy feeling and makes you want to hit your head. But it is a remarkably ambitious film, made imaginatively by McGuigan, even if you don't want to go through these stories of abuse, drugs, divided personalities and insect life twice.

Thomas Waitz reviewed the film for editing and stated that the film "goes beyond the framework of a socially engaged New British Cinema, of course, and unlike Ken Loach or Mike Leigh, Paul McGuigan did it in his feature film debut Nor is it about suggesting possibilities for change: things [are] just the way they [are] and for the most part [are] shitty. "[...] The" essential problem "of the film is to" add three short stories to a feature film plot. " connect ", which is" originally solved "by" not even trying ". [...] “Really annoying, on the other hand,” is “the - admittedly difficult to achieve - German synchronization: from the direct and authentic language of Welsh”, “not much” remained.

Awards

awards received

  • Stockholm International Film Festival 1998
    • FIPRESCI Prize for Paul McGuigan. For its originality in presenting a stark Scottish everyday world in a surreal, almost Hellozigenic light that suits the author and his adventurous visual style.
  • Prix ​​Italia 1998
    • Prix ​​Italia for Paul McGuigan and Irvine Welsh for Granton Star Cause
  • Fantasy postage 1999:
    • AMC Audience Award for Paul McGuigan
    • Silver Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film for Paul McGuigan
    • International Fantasy Film Award for Kevin McKidd and for Gary McCormack for The Acid House in the category "Best Film Actor"

Nominations

  • BAFTA Awards 1998
    • BAFTA TV Award Best Single Drama, Nominees: David Muir, Alex Usborne, Paul McGuigan, Irvine Welsh for Granton Star Cause
  • Stockholm International Film Festival 1998
    • Bronze horse, nominee: Paul McGuigan
  • Sitges Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya 1999
    • Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Gold, nominee: Paul McGuigan
  • Fantasy postage 1999
    • International Fantasy Film Award, nominee: Paul McGuigan in the category "Best Film"

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b David D. O'Leary: The Acid House see filmvault.com (English). Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  2. ^ Angus Wolfe Murray: The Acid House Trilogy see eyeforfilm.co.uk (English).
  3. ↑ Tasha Robinson: The Acid House see film.avclub.com (English)
  4. ↑ The Acid House - A film by Paul McGuigan Fig. DVD case
  5. ^ The Acid House. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  6. ↑ Stephen Holden: "The Acid House": Short Stories, Nasty and Brutish, of Life in Edinburgh In: The New York Times , August 6, 1999 (English). Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  7. ↑ Edward Guthmann: Inspired nastiness In Manic "Acid House" In: Chronicle Staff, 27 August 1999 (English). Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  8. ↑ The Acid House (1998) see anamorphic.in (English, including film excerpt). Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  9. ↑ Josefina Sartora: La Casa de Acido (Te Acid House) see cineismo.com (Spanish). Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  10. ↑ Derek Winnert: The Acid House, Classic Movie Review 677 see derekwinnert.com (English). Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  11. ↑ Thomas Waitz: The Acid House see schnitt.de. Retrieved February 28, 2019.