Ein kurzer Urlaub

Be like a train; go in the rain, go in the sun, go in the storm, go in the dark tunnels! Be like a train; concentrate on your road and go with no hesitation!" Mehmet Murat ildan

Trains are featured prominently in this film. Without them, our heroine, Florinda Bolkan wouldn't be able to go to work, or even mountain retreat. Like trains, she would go on with her life journey - with no regrets and hesitations, in spite of tears.

This is the story of a woman given a respite from her grim life as a devoted wife and mother. She takes her illness in stride and goes off to the mountains to a sanatorium for a cure. While there, she meets people she would never have met otherwise and has time to experience a life other than one of drudgery and selfless devotion. She is even given a chance of escape/salvation. Will she take it? Ah, but that would be a spoiler!

This superb movie shows that realism can be moving and gripping. This woman's plight, her decency and her quiet heroism make for one of the best motion pictures ever made. If it could be released on video or DVD, I'm sure it would do well. Let's hope the owner of the rights to this movie soon figures this out.

Florinda Balkan stars as a factory worker battered by her crippled husband who discovers she has lung disease and is send on medical leave to a TB resort in the mountains for treatment. Here she is romanced by a handsome patient from a nearby facility and develops close friendships with her roommates, sharing their triumphs and disappointments while they battle with fates of mortality. The great irony results in that she is cured, but ruined by the fact she must return to her factory work and poor, abusive family. Fans of Bette Davis (Jezebel) and Joan Crawford (Mildred Pierce) will enjoy her portrayal of a strong tragic heroine. I must admit scenes with her abusive husband and fellow TB patients are quite hard-hitting, but worth enduring to see the powerful finale.

Finally available on DVD. I had been wanting to share this movie with friends for more than 30 years. It has always been on my top 10 list of best movies ever seen.What I remember most are the subtle scenes which communicate so much, the woman wrapping her meat patty from her factory provided lunch in a napkin and slipping it into her purse in order to be able to give it to her son later on. Or after finally going to see a doctor, first making a last-minute detour into a department store to buy new underwear, too embarrassed that the doctor would see her in what she had on. Or at the very end, when the train passes by the billboard with the Mao graffiti on it (the most subtle of political comment). This is a splendid and brilliant movie, exposing the complexity of social circumstance without ever taking the easy way out, or suggesting there is ever an easy answer, in this case just a brief vacation.

This is an amazingly beautiful film. The story of a woman of little means and a horrendous family life who learns much about the world in a sanatorium in the Italian alps. It gives her a brief vacation from a hard life. And understanding. And hope. Truly wonderful. Florinda Bolkan is a great actress ... emoting without emotion. This movie has many levels of plot and story rolled into a single, seemingly simple story. There are many levels of relationships in the movie. Of particular interest is the set of relationships formed between patients from the upper class, the 'paying' patients and those who are in the sanatorium paid for by the national health. The juxtapositions between have and have not, happy and sad, sick and healthy, doctor and patient, hardworking and lazy and many others form the basis of what we see as Clara's learning process and set of life dilemmas.

Hard to find but worth it. Belongs on the top 250 list....but not enough people have seen it to vote.