Train of Life (1998)

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

not a film about war but a great exploration of a community force. not a film about Shoah but one of wise trips in the heart of beauty of an special universe. traditions and stories, precise- delicate characters and the big idea, a travel, a challenge, meditation about the origin and about the best solution. a film who reminds the spirit of Central Europe in inspired manner. it is not easy to define it. it is not Life is beautiful by Benigni. it is not a kind of parable. only a film about life. out of definitions or frames. a film in Mihaileanu's spirit about small and fundamental pieces of existence. nothing real surprising. nothing only seductive. only a support for reflection about the ingenuity and human force of survive.

There is a very fine line that you walk when you are trying to make a comedy about a subject as difficult as the holocaust. Roberto Benigni walked that line with "Life is Beautiful" and never stepped wrong. He knew how to have the trickiest balance between humor and the darkest horror man has ever known.One can imagine how Benigni could have gone wrong. But for an example there is "Train of Life", a shameful exercise in filmmaking whose premise is intriguing, whose script is embarrassing and whose ending is a kick in the face.Here is the intriguing premise: In 1941 the people of a small Jewish community become aware that Hitler is killing Jews in Europe. Fearing that they could be deported, they decide to fake their own deportation by stealing a train, making Nazi uniforms and heading for Pakistan, thereby deceiving the Nazi and saving their lives.The embarrassing script gives us a cast of cartoonish characters who spend 90% of the film squabbling. There is no tension in the scenes where the train in stopped by the Nazis because the Nazis in this film are so dimwitted that they would fall for anything! Now for the ending: The ending (which I won't give away) I suppose is supposed to be poignant or funny or touching but found it to be shameful. With so many denying that the holocaust ever happened, we don't need a film this trite. The movie takes this subject and grinds it down to a rather unfunny sitcom.

This movie is a comedy, no doubt about it: is has comic stereotypes. It's romanced. I laughed. But this film also has epic dimensions, even if they are imaginary. Over the millenia, we are the witnesses of a new Exodus. God leads His people out of harm's way once again. Moses is now a young lunatic, but in his madness he is wiser than all others. The fate of the Jews links at one point with that of the Gypsies. It had to: both are known in history for their thirst for freedom, both had their Exodus(from Egypt to Canaan; from India to the far corners of Europe), both died heavily in the Nazi concentration camps. For all of them who died in the death-camps, this movie is a prison break: it is their share of freedom post-mortem given. They deserved to escape and to reach the Promised Land, but history allows this only in our imagination: they died in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler and in many other. Everyone has the right to try to reach a Promised Land, or a Moby Dick to hunt, or a Holy Grail to find: because they were denied such rights in reality, this imaginary Exodus brings justice even if it's late. This is the main idea of the film: justice for the innocents.

The film Train de vie is a story about how to cope in a time of horror. It is essential to never loose your humour and imagination even in time of war. To stay sane and alive you can turn to insanity. A great paradox but what in life isn´t. I think that we need new ways to look att the holocaust. The hole story is dependent of the end without the ending Train de vie would be rather distasteful i can admit to that. But the ending makes you stop and think and realize that everything you´ve just seen is a figment of the narrators imagination. Constructed by him for his own mental survival. I think that this is a warm and wonderful film, much because of that it is open for many interpretations. Plus the music is absolutely great!