Pociag

You know from the first minute that this is a different kind of train thriller. The first shots are in the station, lots of people bustling about, but instead of "busy" music on the soundtrack, the music here is slow, and it is cool jazz. This sets up the detached tone from the beginning. Some of the characters are nervous, even hysterical, but the director keeps everything at arm's length.

The story is very simple: A man on the train is fleeing after killing his wife. It is not known whether he is alone or with a woman. The movie concentrates on two couples, a single woman, and a single man. The three women move between the men--are they ordinary women looking for companionship, or is one of them trying to help, or escape from, the killer?

The scene in which the murderer is caught will recall the same scene in M and, of course, since the movie is Polish, the hunting down of fleeing, terrified people which so recently happened on Polish soil. The photography, excellent throughout, is especially beautiful and powerful in this scene. The director makes us aware of the symbolism, but not in an obtrusive way. The man who picks up the Cross and what he does with it quietly makes the point that the murderer and his pursuers are not different in kind, only in degree.

This is a film which is a privilege to watch, I don't understand why Criterion collection doesn't have this issued yet. If you didn't watch it make yourself one of the biggest favors and watch it right away. I won't describe the movie, I won't spoil your pleasure. This is not a great movie in the sense that other great movies from the same period are considered masterpieces by critics but when we come to watch them they impress us very little. This is a treat, a delight, a thrill, by any modern standards, you have just to find some good subtitles not the lousy ones available on the web and translated online word by word by translation websites. I myself have watched the movie with this kind of subtitles and still I managed to be impressed to tears by this gem. A big bravo to Jerzy Kawalerowicz!

Night Train is the first film I've seen from highly rated Polish director Jerzy Kawalerowicz and it's a highly impressive film too! The film takes on a Hitchcockian style, although Kawalerowicz' directorial style is more sombre than Hitchcock's and the film straddles the line between thriller/mystery and drama excellently. As the title suggests, the film is set aboard a train, and the director really makes good use of this setting as the claustrophobia of the vehicle is constantly imposed, and other elements such as the chance of meeting strangers on a train and the idea of a lot of different people being together in one place also come into play. The film focuses on Jerzy; a mysterious man who boards a train on course for the Baltic coast. It soon becomes apparent that the man has a high need for privacy, and this is disrupted by Martha, a woman who he finds in his compartment. At first he seems keen to get rid of her, but later reluctantly agrees to let her stay. It later transpires that the police are on the hunt for a man who murdered hid wife...and Jerzy finds himself under suspicion.

The film is stylishly shot and Kawalerowicz' style reminded me somewhat of the "Nouvelle Vogue" style that was popular in France around the early sixties. The black and white picture helps to impose a dark atmosphere on the film and this in turn helps to build the mystery surrounding the central character. The characters themselves are all interesting and the way that the director feeds us more information about each one as the film progresses is well done and helps to keep the audience interested in the film. The acting courtesy of Leon Niemczyk and Lucyna Winnicka in the central roles is excellent and both performers give their characters plenty of credibility. The murderer plot often feels like something of a spare wheel to the other things going on in the film, but I think this was intended as by not putting the full focus on this plot, more time is given to developing the characters. The results of this plot are stunning, however, and the sequence that finally sees the murderer chased down is well shot and highly memorable. As the film winds down, Jerzy Kawalerowicz gives us an interesting take on the twist ending and this helps to separate Night Train further from the majority of other thrillers. Overall, this is a fascinating little thriller and comes highly recommended!

Sadly, I can't agree with most people who find this film to be Hitchcockesque in its representation of a thriller.

To say this would be to say that your Jaguar is just like a Mercedes. They might both be fine cars, but they are in no way alike.

The really quite simplistic plot travels at a slow and in many ways, inexplicable pace. There is little tension built up, and, for the most part, little mystery to be found.

However, don't take any of this to be a retrograde description.

The various small character subplots and interactions are wonderful. The whole journey has a quite haunting feel to it, which I find I am at loss to explain, because if I analyse the film, there is no real reason to this feeling. And yet, there it is.

The beautiful and mysterious Lucyna Winnicka is utterly mesmerising.

In so many ways this film shouldn't work with anything like the power it achieves, but somehow it does. If it captures you in the way it has me, then it will stay with you long after the event, from the strange individual passengers right down to the oh so ethereal soundtrack.

I am without explanation, but I truly hope it gives you the feeling of something wonderful it gave me.

Although it has superficial similarities with Hitchcock films (it's in black and white; it takes place on a train; it's a murder mystery; there are plenty of red herrings and misleading clues), I loved this moody Polish film because it is visually stunning and refreshingly free of Hollywood clichés. I saw a lot of Expressionist influence in the artfully planned staging and unusual camera angles, both inside the cramped railway corridors and outside the train in various stops along the route. The film is fairly demanding on the viewer: there are a lot of secondary characters with complicated stories of their own, and I found myself repeatedly pausing the DVD to catch details that I had missed. The final scenes were intricately choreographed and highly stylized, reminiscent of black-and-white-era Fellini. Not for everyone, but I found it delightful and plan to watch it again.