L'homme du train

1st watched 8/9/2003 - 7 out of 10(Dir-Patrice Leconte): Wonderful drama about two men who want to switch places in life because each is bored of what their life has become. One is a bank robber, and the other is a retired poetry teacher. The bank robber is plain tired of the excitement and the other wants excitement in his life. The retired poetry teacher also has an upcoming triple-bypass heart surgery that lends to his aggressiveness about trying out the other lifestyle. Like many French dramas, this movie takes it's time and explores the characters and let's us get to know them. This is `so' lacking in most American films these days and therefore this is a breath of fresh air for those who are okay with reading subtitles. While watching this movie you get the feeling that you're watching two `real' people interacting despite their differences. Do they ever switch places? Well, sort of but like other French dramas `reality' is where the film stays for the most part. The ability for the characters to understand and accept each other is `just' wonderful and makes a wonderful statement about how we should `all' interact and I think this is what makes this film remarkable.

The great Jean Rochefort plays a mild-mannered old man who's so lonely that as soon as mopey bank robber Johnny Hallyday lets a room in his empty mansion, he simply won't stop talking to him, no matter how little Hallyday says back! Both men are bored with their current lives but are intrigued by the other's.

This slow burner may not be interesting enough for many, certainly not quick enough for most. But its nevertheless a fascinating "little" film and character study. It works in the play between these two men from different worlds, who grow to aspire to see what its like to be the other person. There's no giant twist, no supernatural catch at the end, so don't be expecting it - just enjoy it for the wry, vivid look into the rapport between these two men with nothing in common.

3.5/5. A treat.

European cinema again; again originality, again stuff almost unique that I'm afraid I'll never find something similar. Here, the story about two people, and those two alone, and it is not easy two keep up ninety minutes developing their experiences. You need to have a good eye, pace, and respect for your characters.

These characters are Milan (Johnny Hallyday), a thief; and Monsieur Manesquier (Jean Rochefort), a retired literature professor. Their differences make their encounters scary. One, an old man who likes to talk and is fascinated by this mysterious obscure man in strange clothes; Manesquier enters Milan's room and imagines to be in a fantasy world he couldn't live in.

Milan is quiet and soft talking, but induces the old man into the drinking again, into excitement and adventures; and after meeting his pals he even doubts about carrying on with the only thing he came to do to this town: rob a bank. He reaches the limit of giving a literature lesson to one of Manesquier's pupils.

The camera is in love with them both, and presents each one in an original way when they are on screen. Different colors, postures, followings. Each one might hide something; there's a past, but that's not what this story that wanders through coincidences and casualties of life wants to show.

A simple aspirin, a glass of water; what can that lead to. The anxiety of a man to be part of something he never lived, on one side. On the other side the silence and intrigue of the little conversation. The glasses of wine, the lunches that seem to say much but are saying almost nothing about the characters.

The music, by Pacscal Estève, is very important to the film; giving to it a touch of Westerns style, playing to represent the state of mind and humor of the characters when we see them, or simply, not playing at all; and that's very good sometimes. Ivan Maussion's production design is also a good point for that matter, with his deserted streets and lonely places.

The screenplay results to be cultured and very intelligent. Patrice Leconte's frequent writing collaborator leaves everything in his character's hands; because the words are his. Also frequently cast by Leconte, Jean Rochefort's delivery is impressing in his measured role, that requires little but well done. It's Johnny Hallyday, however, the one who steals, or shines in his loneliness. With all those looks and his face, always full of hidden things.

Metaphors join us again, in the movie; for us to interpret. I tried, and everyone will, but I say: thank Europe for these movies; it's worth and more a kind of pleasure to watch them!

We know this film from childhood, but the child has grown. Here we are in a provincial French city when the cowboy rides in on the iron train to transform the life of a citizen, unexpectedly, profoundly.

Jean Rochefort, with his great face of character, about to go for major surgery, a three vessel bypass, a wifeless man of regrets, a retired teacher of literature to secondary students, is about to meet his fantasy: Johnny Hollyday (the Elvis of France?) who plays a bank robber about to perform his retirement job. Meeting by apparent chance, though clearly pre-ordained, the fantasies of the lonely, anxious teacher whose love of poetry might be his most tender trait in an otherwise ruthlessly real view of the world, are set in motion. Hollyday becomes his unexpected guest...the lone hotel is closed for the season...and an excitement comes to Rochefort's life. The man has guns. There is a picture of him looking terribly western in his leather jacket, the enigmatic stranger/cowboy in the mythos of his host. Ah, to be that man, to fire that gun, to live that life of dark adventure.

It goes on to its meaningful end, not told here except to say that the last scene may be an error, a prolongation that was unnecessary and added nothing to the power of the film, nor detracted from the marvelous performance of Rochefort, who can do no wrong with any role, or Hollyday, whose acting turn here is perfect in the Robert Mitchum noir sense, but tinged with an old-world tiredness that is quite moving. All this with fine subsidiary acting, a perfectly murky Simenonoish setting, and Schubert's melancholic sounds. Ah, bon. Tres, tres bon.

As we left the theatre someone inevitably said, `that was very French.' And so it was, or at least it was a movie that Hollywood would never have made. Washed-up bank robber meets retired French teacher and they become friends, each hankering after the other's lifestyle. The teacher is facing open-heart surgery, the robber the prospect of a dangerous bank job with three unreliable associates. All this set in a really boring small town in the Rhone Valley (filmed mainly in Annonoy with funding of course from the local Film Commission).

Yet it works. Watching the two principals, Jean Rochefort as the teacher and Johnny Hallyday as the robber is like watching Torvill and Dean – perfect synchronisation, but with humour added. There's not a false move and the script is seamless – it seems quite inevitable that such an improbable relationship could develop. Somehow we don't notice the improbabilities, such as the gang stealing a huge (by French standards) and rare BMW 740 for use as a getaway car the evening before the robbery from a car park in the centre of town, and making no effort to conceal it until the robbery at 10 heurs the next day.

Perhaps the relationship can be explained on the basis that Jean likes to talk and Johnny is content to listen. As they get to know each other Jean becomes quite concerned about his guest and Johnny, for his part, comes to admire his host. He even upbraids Jean's quite pleasant mistress for boring Jean with talk of her children's misdemeanours.

The film ends in a flurry of `maybe things might have been different if…'. You can choose the alternative ending you like in fact, though the fantasy is more palatable that reality. Unlike Hollywood, French filmmakers trust their audience, and it is unlikely too many viewers will feel cheated here.