Jerzy Kawalerowicz's "Train" returns to cinemas. How does it hold up over the years?
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- 30 Mar 2023
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The idea for the film came from life: Jerzy Kawalerowicz once went to the seaside in a ladies' compartment with a woman in crisis, who told him the story of her life overnight. The director, looking for the best way to make a film version of this story, decided to put almost all the action on the train. It lasts as long as the course of the night express to Hel, and the protagonists are the passengers crowded in its cramped interiors. The viewer knows about them only as much as can be learned about random travel companions - a coquette bored with her husband seduces whomever she can, a former prisoner of a concentration camp fights with insomnia, old women go on a pilgrimage, a summer picker hunts for prey. The turning point seems to be the moment the militia appears and the information that there is a murderer on the train...
On the one hand, the film is a play on the conventions of a thriller and melodrama, on the other - a kind of poetic sketch full of understatements. The melancholy mood is created by the music , especially Wanda Warska's ballad vocals, which is the leitmotif of the film. From a contemporary perspective, a night journey is a metaphor for life, and the whole Train is a nostalgic return to the best period in the history of Polish cinema. Read More…
