Le train

In th seventies,Granier-Deferre became the "cinema De Qualité " director par excellence ;more accessible and less pretentious than Claude Sautet after "Max Et Les Ferrailleurs " ,his career really began in the early sixties with two estimable movies with Jean Gabin ("La Horse" and "Le Chat"),he continued with craftsman works such as "La Veuve Couderc" or "Le Train" ,both Georges Simenon's books transferred to the screen.

It may explain the "detective story" ending,which may seem a bit irrelevant in a realistic movie,but it is saved by the talent of the two principals,Schneider and Trintignant,injecting more emotion into the scene than you might think possible.

This is an apt title,for most of the movie takes place on a train,a train full of people running away from the German armies in 1940 (the beginning recalls René Clément's "Jeux Interdits" (1952).The screenwriters made no bones about criticizing French cowardliness and selfishness;it was before "Lacombe Lucien" to be precise ;As the character played by Maurice Biraud remarks :"we're afraid,we are fleeing,so we don't fight each other,get it?" On the train,the characters are stereotypes,particularly the hooker played by Regine ,probably inspired by Maupassant's "Boule De Suif",the unwed mother (oddly portrayed by cerebral (who said tedious?) Anne Wiazemsky,two sex maniacs ("when I look at you (the whore),I look like a beast !- even when you don't!);the Jewish German (Schneider),the average man (Trintignant).

An user complained that this man in the street should leave his pregnant wife and his little girl for a while and sleep with the German woman:in a world gone mad,anything can happen ,it would never have happened,had this electrician continued his routine life .

Following René Clément's steps in "Jeux Interdits" ,GD smartly integrates black and white archives films which ,with a careful editing ,turn color when the director returns to his fiction.Which his predecessor was not able to do.

Unusual but not terribly compelling WWII drama almost wholly set aboard a train (transporting French people fleeing from the oncoming Nazi invaders). The film's core is the budding romance between fellow passengers Jean-Louis Trintignant (whose pregnant wife and young daughter are staying in a different compartment and eventually get 'lost' along the way) and Romy Schneider, a German-Jew war widow.

Despite a busy narrative - Trintignant stepping down at every station to ask for the possible whereabouts of his family, Schneider being picked on by a group of loutish passengers in view of her aristocratic airs (meanwhile, an ageing prostitute is all-too-willing to render her services free of charge in such hard times!) and for whom the usually meek Trintignant stands up, a rather underdeveloped subplot involving young single mother Anne Wiazemsky (then still married to Jean-Luc Godard), etc. - the tone of the film is too glum and the treatment too conventional to generate much audience involvement; that said, the interspersing of black-and-white newsreels of similar events from the era was an inspired touch and the scene in which the train comes under aerial attack from the Nazis, leaving numerous victims, is nicely handled (even if the moment when a couple are mown down while relieving themselves in an open field comes off as unintentionally funny!). Besides, the film has other virtues in the pleasant countryside photography of Walter Wottitz (an expert in WWII-based films, among them John Frankenheimer's THE TRAIN [1964] - which was actually filmed in France!) and a lush score from Philippe Sarde.

An interesting moment in the film occurs when Trintignat scoffs at Schneider's recounting of how the Nazis intended to exterminate the Jewish population, which gives credence to the notion that the world only became aware of the full extent of the Holocaust after the war was over. When the train arrives at its destination, Trintignant is re-united with his family (including a new-born son) - but not before having passed off Schneider as his wife to the Gestapo officials! At the end, however, when she's captured as a member of the Resistance they're somehow able to link her back to him and the couple are brought together for questioning...

I saw the film especially as admirer of Romy Schneider. I was seduced , again, by her presence and the close ups serve , in beautiful way, this cause. Her Anne , defined by bad experiences, becoming part of a story of survive and one of love, proposing a manner to resist to pressures and fears, educated , in some measure, in some form, a simple man, losting, for a period, his family, is just fair.

A war film , a trip , in the womb of a train under attacks of Nazi airplanes, a splendid scene about persecution against Jews , a great portraits of characters and inspired - dramatic end.

A beautiful film about experiences, love, refuges and radical decisions . And admirable job of Romy Schneider and Jean Louis Trintignant.

France during 1940 to 1943 as seen by the acute observer Georges Simenon, an author who wrote the Maigret series, admired for his penetrating insights into the traditional lives of the French. It should be remembered by non-French viewers, that the French remember their dead from The Great War (WW1) on crosses and plaques in almost every village in France. (America came to understand this on 9/11, though only three places were hit.) Also that WW1 was fought on French soil. Twenty years later they are invaded again. (Maybe they should be blamed for that because of their vengeful Versaille Treaty.) Remember also that President de Gaulle (centre right) and President Mitterand (socialist) refused to take up the accusations of France caving into Hitlers demands and becoming a puppet regime under the name of Vichy which incorporated into its own laws the Nazi anti-Jewish programs. Against this essential background, there are two of Europe's most subtle actors, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Romy Scheider, who give a haunting performance of pathos and love. They flee by a "last" train northern France in 1940, before Paris falls, to the west coast La Rochell (incidentally, the town to be the German submarine base dramatically filmed in Das Boot). Trintignant with other men and unaccompanied women have to make do in a wagon for horses. This is a significant image. Other important images are the changing countryside, the generosity of the French, the first criminal acts of war of Luftwaffe planes shooting on civilians. Trintignant shows kindness, consideration and courage in protecting Romy Schneider. The rhythm begins to liken Ravel's Bolero: he is traditional parochial French, married with children (who are in the train's better compartments), he is inexperienced with other women, ignorant of world events, so he reflects the very subdued key of the beginning of Bolero; she is a German Jew, internationally experienced, knows men, has the instinct of survival. She adds to the sharper tones in Bolero. Their relationship develops in the wagon. He is more careful to transgress marriage boundaries, she does not want to comprise him, but both slowly are drawn to each other in the steady mounting Bolera rhythm. In the wagon, others engage in sexual intercourse and soon she realizes that she must make the first move. She understands that life is to be lived each minute and so their growing love, reaching new rhythmic heights, is consummated. All is natural, natural as horses in a wagon. No morality, no anglo-saxon prudery, just natural, as one understands this on continental Europe and in the East. The bolera rhythm reaches its climax in the last minutes. Three years he has not seen her. When he was reunited with his wife and new born child in La Rochelle she on her own accord left unseen. He is called to the French National Police. The French police worked in close agreement with the Gestapo (the security police arm of the Nazi Party) and just this aspect so ignored by Presidents de Gaulle and Mitterand is where author Georges Simenon subtedly puts in the knife. At the interview, he is confronted with her, arrested for being a Jew with the French Resistance. He denies the French Secret Service Police inspector's questions, but when she is brought in, the climax and (the Boleros crescendo) is released: the last scene is so powerful, love, the essence of life, is dealt doom. Essential to see, for so many lived that life!

The film is developed during the Lightning War(Blitzkrieg) a military tactics inaugurated by Hitler and carry out by such combat commanders as General Guderian, commanding the Panzers troops, in the French campaigns of 1940. The accent was no longer placed on endless columns of soldiers marching a few miles a day. Instead of the static lines Lightning War emphasized mobility and fluidity, destroying thousands of artillery pieces as well as several French infantry divisions.The enemy was slowed down by bombing from the air all his means of communications and transportation, trains, roads and the opposing air force was destroyed on the ground. The German regular infantry , foot soldiers and motor-drawn artillery were committed to mop up resistance and join up with advances forces. The French invasion is well reflected in documentary stuff added into the movie. French people attempt to flee by any means possibles, throwing the fugitives and defenders into hopeless confusion . A radio repairman named Julien(Jean Louis Trintignant ) aboard a train with his pregnant spouse and kid. But he's placed in cattle wagon and his family in passengers cars . There Julien knows Jewish-German woman named Anna(Romy Schneider),and falls in love with her.Furthermore they befriend to remainder passengers(Regina,Serge Marquand, among others).

This is an interesting drama/war developed in a French train during the 40s and based on novel by George Simenon,'Inspector Maigret's author'.It's the feeling story about a doomed love with sweet moments and sad ending with fateful destination. Extraordinaries performances from duo protagonist, as Jean Louis Trintignant as insignificant father of family turned into enamored and Jewish saving, and an enjoyable Romy Schneider as long-suffering Jewish turned into Resistance fighter. Colorful cinematography by Walter Wottitz who also photographed 'The train' by John Frankenheimer. Emotive and atmospheric musical score by Philippe Sarde. The motion picture is well directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre who added extensive documentary footage. Writer and filmmaker Pierre Granier directed to French all-stars, Jean Louis Trintignant, Alain Delon but specially worked with Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura ; and again directed to Romy Schneider in 'A woman at her window' . Rating : Better than average.