I watched this movie at Fantaspoa 2010, and I was very impressed by it. It really took me to another reality, or rather, unreality; a bad dream. The great graphical quality of it, together with a matching soundtrack, and a well performed narrative, telling such original and uncommon story, accomplished what many top-budget Hollywood horror movies failed to. It made me feel uncomfortable, even though I shouldn't be able see myself into any of the characters, as it tells us about an apocalyptic world. This animation's characteristics, though, made it easy to feel like in a nightmare. A nightmare that could be mine. A nightmare that, for 70 minutes, was mine.
Technically speaking, the soundtrack is not great. It's suitable. The graphics are great. Most of the time, it doesn't seem like hard things to make, like it was a challenge. But each element was well orchestrated, making each frame a painting, a portrait of pain, despair. The narrative of the main character was well elaborated, completing the portrait with the colors of agony, lack of hope, compromise to emptiness. The pace of the movie is slow. It gives you the time to assimilate each and every bad moment the character is going through. It helps you enter the torpid, dormant feelings of the train's passengers, as life passes by outside. The engineers of the train made the important decisions, practically nobody else cared. They let themselves be taken.
The story is coherent overall, as a dream can be. Many elements go unexplained, but you should consider that as not relevant. It stands clear that the important thing is Cee's point of view of the things that happen around her. The other characters' behaviours aren't unrealistic. Greed, altruism, envy, pride. Nothing is exaggerated or stereotyped.
I won't recommend it for most people, as it is strong. It is, after all, also like a nightmare in these points: you don't want it. You don't like it. You wish you never had it. It makes you feel bad. But it ends, and then you're glad that you can be awake in your real world, in your real life. Back to normality.
So yes, I liked it a lot, and there are a few people I would recommend it to: the few people who are aware that nightmares are a part of ourselves. A part that helps to keep us sane. The same part that helps us understand the difference between reality and illusion. Good things and bad things. Ultimately, it helps us understand the balance of life.
