Rheingold, compartiment meurtre

I came across this movie totally by happenstance, and picked it up because I was vaguely intrigued by the name. I had never heard about this movie before, nor of any of the actors or contributors.

This is an incredible, hallucinatory, lucid, riveting movie. Although there is little external action, it sucks the viewer right in and keeps him on the edge of his seat, by constantly introducing new developments and characters, through minute but perpetual twists and turns, but also through the breathtaking cinematography (director Nikolaus Schilling mostly worked as a cameraman before taking up directing, and it really shows).

The title refers of course to the Wagner opera, from which incidentally The Lord Of The Rings later borrowed its motif: the struggle between love (the pure gold) and power (the ring forged from the raw gold). And this is also the motif of the movie, of a woman who is torn between wealth, comfort and security (and affection) and passionate, but impoverished love. A conflict which she is eventually, and tragically, unable (or unwilling) to resolve.

This is an absolutely brilliant movie, which I highly recommend.

Germany, 1977. A mature, rich and bored woman called Elisabeth (Elke Aufderheide) is taking a ride with the "Rheingold", a first-class high-speed train of the seventies along the river Rhine. In the train she is meeting her old school mate and lover who is working as a waiter and falls in love with him again. Her husband, a busy politician, realizes what's going on and tries to catch the train to face his wife and her lover in a fatal showdown.

That's the whole storyline of this well-shot German independent movie, but director Niklaus Schilling ("Nachtschatten", "Der Westen leuchtet" and "Der Willi-Busch-Report") uses weird editing techniques and lots of flashbacks and dream-like sequences to explain what going on - and what could have happened. This is sometimes to much for the viewer, and you fastly get lost within the narration and plot, as Schilling becomes to fascinated by the sheer contrast between the fast-running train (perfectly shot in the beautiful Rhine valley landscapes) and the slow and paralyzed acting of the persons involved.

In the last 30 minutes, Schilling only shows the nameless woman sitting in her cabin, bleeding to death after a knife attack by her husband and staring out of the window while being watched by another well-looking woman and listening to the narration of an older passenger about the Rhinestone tale. This long-lasting sequence is only interrupted by moody flashbacks of her first encounters with her husband and lover and surreal love and sex scenes.

This extreme movie style is the strength of this movie as well as its weakness at the same time - the thrilling story and the beautiful pictures get lost in the slow pacing and the sometimes too lame direction. In the end you will fall asleep during the film is running, or you will stay awake and be confused and fascinated at the same time. "Rheingold" is not as good as "Nachtschatten", but still one of Schilling's better movies. Give it a try.

"The legendary Rheingold-Express (Rhine Gold) was a famous train riding between Hoek van Holland near Rotterdam and Basel, Switzerland, a distance of 662 km. It drove along the Rhine River via Arnhem, Netherlands and Cologne, Germany had special luxury coaches. It was named after Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold opera, which romanticized the Rhine (from wikipedia)."

This film is as much the sad tale of a fatal love affair as it is a very effective feature-length commercial of the Rheingold train and the romantic German landscape of castles and rocky hills near the banks of the Rhine river.

Elisabeth is a rich woman in her late thirties. Since Elisabeth has traveled on more occasions with the Rheingold, one day she recognized her former sweetheart from elementary school, now working as an attendant aboard the train. Unhappy with her marriage, Elisabeth started an affair with the attendant.

At the start of the film, Elisabeth is breaking up with her husband. Lost for words, her husbands stabs her in a fit of rage with the letter opener Elisabeth just gave him as a farewell present. The husband flees from the train, leaving Elisabeth unhurt or so it seems.

Shortly after the train has started its voyage, she finds out she has a wound in her abdominal section. Instead of alerting attendants and ask for emergency assistance, Elisabeth acts as if nothing has happened. When she meets with her lover, the attendant, she tells him of her breaking up with her husband, at which her lover says he's very happy.

As the train progresses on its journey through the romantic German Rhine landscape, Elisabeth has flash-backs as she remembers happier days with her husband, meeting up with her old childhood love and a memorable scene when both her lover and she were still kids. Possibly the other flash-back scenes that don't involve the Rheingold train were shot in the direct vicinity of the train route. If that's the case then the movie also doubles for a rather effective commercial for Rhine tourism. That said, all of the photography is of remarkable quality and the direction is also second to none.

The director maximizes his efforts by having the husband, filled with remorse, charter a taxi cab and order the chauffeur to chase the Rheingold! This was way before computer editing so the scenes are very effective and shows the director's great skill: in one scene, in a continuous shot, the husband is arguing with the cab-driver as they are driving through Germany. The driver turns his head to the left, points to the train that has appeared in view and says, "there she is!" Just bear in mind how much organizational skills and plain talent a director needs to complete such a shot either in one take or with extreme patience in multiple takes, until he ends up with the perfect, continuous shot. After a failed take, they would have to wait for the next train (with the characteristics of the Rheingold) to appear in view.

As the train gets closer to its destination, Elisabeth's wound keeps getting worse while none of the other passengers in her cabin noticing anything strange. They are much too caught up in their own life and musings to see that anything's the matter with Elisabeth. It is the last passenger she meets, after having changed cabins, who remarks she is looking rather pale and not at all well.

The viewer will wonder why Elisabeth never alerted anyone to her critical condition but then if she had, this beautiful film would never have been made.

"Operation of the Rheingold TEE (Trans Europe Express) ended on May 30, 1987 after 59 years and 15 days. The TEE 14 was pulled by a BR 103 (wikipedia)."