Viagem Noturna no Trem da Via Láctea

The best thing about this movie is the dreamlike quality of it. Lots of fiction texts--novels, comicbooks, movies, whatever--take place in the world of dreams, but this is the first movie I've seen that really felt like it. Things happen one after the other in a drifting, diffuse pilgrimage on a train that goes to the end of the universe: migrating herons that fall to the earth and turn into candy, apples that reproduce themselves, an Italian village populated by cats. Being that they're passing through the night sky, some of the stations are named after constellations, and some are just...places. It's like reading The Old Man and the Sea--you feel like you're there for days and wake up to find that it was only a few hours. To me, that's a measure of a really good story.

One of the funnier bits was when the human characters appeared and didn't bat an eye at sitting next to anthropomorphic, pastel-coloured cats.

If you enjoy picking apart movie texts, you can always have a fun argument with your friends about the religious motifs that pop up in an oddball way throughout the story. Were the filmmakers taking stabs at Christianity, or just appropriating its symbols for the story's own kind of mysticism (a la Neon Genesis Evangelion, maybe)?

Superior to almost every toe-curling art-house flick that touches on similar territory Night on the Galactic Railroad says more and presents itself better than one would expect coming from a mere animated movie. Indeed if this was re-shot in live action, maybe in black and white and dubbed into French it would become a canonical post new-wave classic: to be fawned over by leagues of pea-brained cineastes. However it remains a little known and rarely talked about anime that has been seen by more fans of Galaxy Express 999 than by fans of Alan Resnais. Based upon the short children's work of the same name by Kenji Miyazawa the tale is ostensibly of a young cats (Giovanni) coming to terms with death by means of a surrealist adventure along the titular Galactic Railroad. The film contains a sequence of superbly realised vignettes that gradually paint the picture of Giovanni's life at home; his ill mother and itinerant father, bullying classmates and later the fantastical sights and stations he encounters on his one way ticket to the edge of the universe. The train he boards carries with it passengers of many creeds and persuasions: some disembark at the Pliocene Coast to further the cause of science others exit only to blithely tramp towards an afterlife of either Pagan, Christian or Buddhist contrivance . . . but young Giovanni stays on until the end. The less alert may mistake this film for some sort of religious allegory but it is nothing of the sort: Giovanni's revelation at the end seems more a triumph of moral philosophy. All text in the movie is written in Esperanto and the locations on Earth are reminiscent of small town medieval Europe. Beautifully scripted, animated and immaculately directed by Sugii Gisaburo, Night on the Galactic Railroad is one of the unsung masterpieces of cinema.

Night on the Galactic Railroad isn't your traditional family film. It deals with some incredibly deep themes, as well as having a slow meditative pace. We follow a young cat (changed from human in the original book) called Giovanni. Giovanni has no time for himself. His father is away, his mother is sick, and when he isn't at school he has to work. One evening the family's delivery of milk never comes, so Giovanni goes to get it. He rests on top of a hill before being confronted by a train. He gets on and finds his friend Campenella. From there the duo encounter a number of passengers each with a strange story to tell. This film is certainly all about the metaphysical. Each story strengthens the themes of religion and sacrifice. It gets highly emotional at times. The imagery is often surreal but always memorable. The animation is calm in both colours and movement. This film is presented in chapters, which I think may be a better way to digest it. It's something no country but Japan would try, and the ending is so powerful it really does make the journey worth it. Mature and thoughtful, if sometimes a little slow.

This is a review of the English-dubbed version, and I'm sorry, but the voices aren't a great fit to the characters. However, the film as a whole is intriguing and beautiful. It also gets a little unsettling at times, but in a good way.

One shortcoming common to all versions, however, is the lack of facial individuality of the characters. They don't show much in the way of expressions and when they do, they are a bit samey.

But this is still something I'd recommend on the whole. A leisurely trip through a very strange galaxy.

I have noticed that everywhere I look for reviews on this movie I see people confused and, sometimes, offended by the use of Christian symbols and themes used throughout this movie. I watched this movie as a child and remember being the only kid in my family who loved it and found it fascinating, but i was a Christian back then (that being the only thing I knew). As an Atheist, I rewatched this movie a few days ago and was completely overwhelmed by its use of Christian symbolism throughout the film, but I kept watching and noticed that almost as abruptly as that had started, the subject had dropped. Upon sitting alone in my room I thought it over in my head and I noticed something: The Christians on the train went to Christian heaven, while another character on the train went to his own heaven to join with one of his family, and Giovanni had a ticket to the "One True Heaven". I rather like this idea, and it makes me love the film more than I already did. Truly one of the best animated movies of all time, what a masterpiece!

Also, the Heaven Giovanni can't see might be his one true heaven, just something to think about. ;)