One Night... a Train (1968) User Reviews

A look at death.

[allenrogerj · 8/10 · 6 September 2006]

A beautiful, delicate film. One virtue is the care that Delvaux shows in exactly depicting his characters. Twice Matthieu tastes wine and we see his sensual relish in the way he holds his glass, smells and tastes it. When he eats oysters with his mistress Anne the distance between them is shown in the contrast between Anne's speech and Matthieu's concentration as he cuts them from their shells and eats them. The people in their train department are exactly drawn. The young couple facing Matthieu are depicted with the care of a Flemish painter. When he stops his lecture and walks out because the Flemish students are on strike, Matthieu exactly and precisely defines the degree and conditions of his support for them. We can believe that the costumes Anne has designed for Everyman are real costumes that might be used in a genuine production. Even Matthieu's hallucination or nightmare is exactly drawn; we accept this because it is so precisely outside reality rather than a vague and indefinite place.

Disorientating and gripping

[robertbroadie · 8/10 · 6 October 2009]

I found out about this film because I'd heard it was an inspiration for Fabrice Du Weltz's gut-wrenching horror film Calvaire. The parallels to anyone who's seen both are obvious, and perhaps the strange situation the lead character ends up in here was tinged with an exaggerated anticipation of fear for me because of Calvaire.

I'm sure it's a deliberate device of Delavaux to make Anne (Anouk Aimee) a passive and totally unengaging support character - in fact, her face remains unchanged in death. The dream, if it is a dream, is far more real.

I also suspect that like a real dream, this film is totally open-ended and defies any one-dimensional explanation. The scene with the uncomprehending hillbillies in the restaurant, including Moira's hypnotic dance, is sheer brilliance - tense, strange, disorientating and very funny.

Fascinating journey

[jbgeorges · 8/10 · 14 July 2020]

Embark on this train for a fascinating journey alongside two sacred monsters of French cinema, Yves Montant and Anouk Aimée. Between dream and reality, freedom and loneliness, love and death, past and future, you may get lost sometimes, but it will only be to better find yourself and who you really are ... An incredible atmosphere served by beautiful painting-like images of bleak landscapes that let the imagination wander. All the actors, including the supporting roles, deliver a very good performance. The close-ups of those lost faces or busy hands are fascinating and slowly lead you into another world ... It is a timeless movie, filled with oniric symbols, at times disturbing and even scary. It's a strange, slow, contemplative movie that you can watch and watch again to discover new interpretatons and symbols. Embark on this train and let yourself be carried away on a fabulous journey!

Night Train To Obscurity

[writers_reign · 7/10 · 10 September 2006]

This is a fairly obscure film made by Montand shortly after he finally became comfortable with screen acting via Compartiment tuer a couple of years earlier and for me Montand was the sole reason for seeking it out. To describe it as surreal would be like describing Salvador Dali as grounded in reality and it is one of those entries which, conveniently for the director, everyone will interpret in his or her own way. The central premise is that hoary old chestnut about the communications expert thrown into a strange universe which he finds incomprehensible. Montand is a professor of linguistics who lives with but is not married to a theatre designer played by an Anouk Aimee who seems strangely cold and unattractive in complete contrast to the role she played prior to this in Un Homme et un femme. Although they smile at each other rather a lot the relationship itself appears to have gone off the boil and when pressed he is reluctant to commit to marriage. Having established all of this the Professor takes a train to fulfil a lecture engagement in a neighboring country and having advised his mistress not to accompany him on the grounds that he will have no time to spend with her he is bemused to find her joining him in the train. He nods off, wakes to find her gone. The train stops in the middle of East Jesus. He disembarks along with one older and one younger man. The train moves on leaving them stranded. Eventually they stumble on what at first sight seems a ringer for Oliver Goldsmith's Deserted Village. Somehow they find themselves in a movie theatre where the screen is full of images of free-falling people. For an encore they hit a hotel where no one, least of all the linguistics maven, can understand a word being spoken. And so it goes on. Apparently helmer Delvaux is a Flemish painter and the film abounds in Flemish-type paintings masquerading as frames of film. Mr. Bean it's not. They'll be 'teaching' this one in the varsity circuit for years but don't look for it in Loewe's State.

Fabulous dreamlike movie.

[dbdumonteil · 10/10 · 16 August 2001]

The drama of in-communicability as never before,and never after.A couple ,Montand and Aimée, feels that their love is becoming a thing of the past.He is a linguistics professor,he reigns over words and culture;she does not understand the language they speak in this part of Belgium. One night,both take a train;suddenly it stops.Anne (Aimée) has disappeared ,and Matthias (Montand) gets out of the train.With two unknown guys,he sees the train silently and slowly moving ,like in a dream.The dream has begun.

Matthias and his two mates are left alone in the country.They arrive in a small village where,that crowns it,the university professor cannot understand a single world of the inhabitants' language.A very strange scene shows the three men coming into a tiny movie theater.On the screen,an odd,almost disturbing film is projected:a parachutist floating in the air,sometimes shot in close-up,with an almost unbearable soundtrack.The audience seems to live in another world.Not only Matthias does not understand the language,but he does not understand their entertainment either .Then they go to a restaurant ,the staff of which seems to wait for them.Maybe..

When he returns to reality,Matthias will find out how selfish he has been with Anne.But it's a movie you can interpret in accordance with your sensitivity.Never a director has gone so far in intertwining dream with reality.The in communicability of Matthias and the strange people of his dream is a metaphor of that of the two lovers.But ,because of the harrowing conclusion,which leaves the audience totally hopeless,perhaps this dream was an escape,or a way to delay what was ineluctable.André Delvaux gave us the best European movie of 1968.

A movie you watch like a painting

[DGuimberteau · 10/10 · 5 September 2002]

"Un soir un Train" is one of the rare movies I keep watching over and over, simply because André Delvaux, a painter himself, used the same technique as that of a painting. Every picture is a piece of artistic poetry. Anouk Aimée superbly contributes to the dreamy atmosphere of the movie and Yves Montand struggling out of this nightmare is really moving.

"Un soir un train " is really a must see.