Like the Titanic or some expensive old-timer the Orient Express is more than a simple mean of transport:it represents traveling in luxury,providing stability,comfort and elegance seldom to be achieved today.Even more,Nicolaescu tried to turn his film into an own version of Titanic,the luxury train being the only reminder an old prince has of his past.Like Rose De Witt Bukater remembers her youth always in connection with the Titanic in its glory days,the old prince eventually "meets" persons from his past in the Orient Express-this is the way his approaching death is depicted,much like the way Rose from Titanic ends,in an endless kiss from her late lover,surrounded by other dead persons,becoming alive and kicking in the famous ship before its sinking. Besides Titanic,Nicolaescu imitates visibly Visconti's Gattopardo,even Nicolaescu's very stylishly trimmed beard and mustache obviously reminding of Burt Lancaster's looks while he played Don Fabrizio Di Salina,however without being able to compete with Lancaster's acting skills. The rest is typically Nicolaescu:he changes the action from the original novel significantly(by the way read the book,much better than the film),introducing new characters,changing names,twisting plots and even the outcome of the character's actions.It goes so far that characters which don't die in the book are here sacrificed(in the tear-jerking Titanic or Legends of the Fall style),only to make things more melodramatic. The message of the film is even more(falsely)didactic:everything stresses upon how inhuman the prince is,sort of Sade,Dorian Grey or Mephisto capable only to stylishly pervert the lives of the adorable,idyllic simple people(a Communist bias concerning the decay of the "exploiters"),therefore he must fail.In fact,the character shows only a certain fascination towards fleeing from reality,but maybe this is his way to show his human side-note that Don Fabrizio wasn't inhuman either,bearing a very intense emotional life under his cold aristocratic elegance.The proletarian anger against the ruling classes is simply annoying-even if an aristocrat's conduct might seem awkward to the common man,getting to know the values of the aristocrats eventually enables a different viewpoint. This film would have been great,but only with another director and another actor in the main part.
Review of Orient Express
