Le train des enfants

The Italians are brilliant at creating gems like this. Beautiful stories, top-class performers and wonderful musical scores.

Over the years we have seen films that dealt with the evacuation of English children from London and other cities to the countryside due to the aerial bombings during WW2. However, I was certainly not aware of this particular piece of history that, after WW2, saw 70,000 children from the South of Italy sent up North for a different reason, to avoid poverty and the terrible conditions they were living in. This film, set in those sad times, provides us with an insight of what it must have been like for the families.

Inevitably, tissues will be required at times and the gentle, haunting score by legendary Italian composer Nicola Piovani (who won an Oscar for "La Vita è Bella") enhances the entire production.

Strangely, the music credit (at the time of writing) is not shown on IMDB, or at least not in its usual position on the list.

Having watched this production you will likely be inspired, like me, to do some further research into this period of Italian history.

I liked the film, it has a good character development, an interesting plot and a good set design.

I want to highlight some things that I liked about the film: The actors, the scenes, the character development, the story and how it progresses seem to me to be the strong points of this film. It does not contain any notable flaws and it does have its emotional and heartbreaking moments.

It is the first film by Christian Cervone (Amerigo) and he has done a good job interpreting his protagonist, he has a future in the world of acting, I have no doubt about that.

It is without a doubt one of the best Italian films I have seen and I fully recommend it.

This is a beautiful little Italian gem. The over all production to include photography, sets, costumes and musical score are superb and in my opinion worth several awards.

The script is very simple although not too original as it reminds of some old fashioned Italian style seen several times before over the history of Italian film making. It probably reminds of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso or La Vita e' Bella but it also reminds of old Sophia Loren's films given the importance of the female characters.

However the story is still beautifully told and it is sweet and touching in its simplicity.

The acting is superb from all members of the cast , including the children.

It is an unexpected high quality film from Netflix which in my opinion would deserve recognition from the public and the critics. An old fashioned enjoyable and very touching beautiful film. I had a little tear at the end.

While many will review the stunning acting, landscapes and story, I come away from this movie with that sense of a Mom's love.

Most of you will know the type, the love that will do what ever it takes to make sure her son has the best chance at life.... Even if that love breaks her own heart..... When a boy needs most of his life to work out the start of his life and the journey's he has to take, this movie explains this in spades.

Although it took me a couple of times to fully grasp the entire concept of the movie, (I prefer natural dialogue and sub-titles, so I sometimes miss a bit while reading) the idea of watching it a second time, made me feel good....this story is that good.

This is a movie, that will stay with me for the rest of my life.... It's that powerful.

This is one of the best movies I have ever watched.

This was a wonderful Italian film based on the title novel, and it truly captured the loneliness and love felt for those children sent to new families during the war. Amerigo is one such example, and his character development was lovely to see. It was hard to see what war would have been like to those affected. The children aren't spoken of as much, so this film hits spot on. The filming was beautifully done, as well as the soundtrack. It combined with the story of losing a child so that they can be loved and taken care of will truly make you cry. Be prepared for the ending, for it sums up the whole story in an emotional and profound way.