Illusive Tracks

2003
6.8| 1h40m| en| More Info
Released: 25 December 2003 Released
Producted By: SVT
Country: Sweden
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Christmas 1945. In a train from Stockholm to Berlin are a motley collection. It is the failure of the author Gunnar who wants to leave his old life and make a contribution in Berlin; physician Henry who plan to marry Marie and likewise Henry's current wife Karin, who he plans to kill during the journey, the middle-aged gay couple Pompe and Sixten, a soldier going to Uppsala but is on the wrong train: the cheerful and cynical old Margaret, and a dressed elf and a surly conductor. With the train are also a number of Baltic refugees accompanied by two nuns to be sent to Germany.

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Reviews

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
tynesider This picture begins with a group of Swedish characters embarking on a train journey to Berlin. We are soon introduced to the dark humour that is a main feature of the film, and then the simple plot is introduced, two lovers intending to murder the man's wife. Shades of Double Indemnity in that it's to be done on a train. A writer and critic who is also travelling, has encounters with his fellow passengers, especially a wounded soldier, whose injuries he gradually adds to in a series of accidental and increasingly bizarre mishaps. The other characters range from the fairly normal to the frankly weird, from the train conductor to the male couple and the two nuns, but the writer who blunders his way through the film causing mayhem is the central figure, and his encounters with the soldier will amuse or not depending on your taste in comedy and how seriously you take life.The murder plot is woven into the comedy nicely and the murderous couple become increasingly desperate as their plans seem to be failing. The B and W photography is crisp and as the train moves on the plot moves on with it at a nice pace. The postscript is quite clever too.Monsieur Hulot meets Hitchcock?
SWZwick This thing works on all levels -- it's intense as a thriller, full of Lars von Trier homages, but also very much its own film -- and it does have a message: happiness comes from within, best personified in the wounded soldier who practically (and, believe it or not, humorously) disintegrates limb by limb throughout the film, all the while apologizing to others for imposing on them. You laugh at him, but you envy him as well. The central character is a well-meaning but clumsy writer who spends the whole film trying to help those he befriends on a train from Stockholm to Berlin just after World War II. He ties the parallel stories together, and really screws people up in the process. To say things go wrong is an understatement -- and structurally, the characters are all in perfect opposition to each other. It's like every one of them has an opposite -- just so tight, like watching anti-matter collide. You will not believe the sick stuff you end up laughing at. To say more would qualify as a spoiler -- all I can say is it is a shame this film has not been released in the US, not even on DVD. Some moron probably told them Americans wouldn't get it -- which is crap, because we not only "get" but produce things like South Park... If this film gets marketed in the US, it should be sold as a mainstream black comedy, because that's what it is. Over-the-top, sick and twisted, but fuuuuunnnnnyyyyy!
Fabian Lidman (fabianl) Skenbart takes place in the 1940s, right after the second world war. Main character Gunnar (Gustav Hammarsten) quits his job to get a chance to "make a difference" in the bombed-out postwar Europe. He packs a book by his favourite philisopher, Ludwig Witgenstein, and embarks on a trip which will eventually prove Witgenstein's famous statement true: Nothing is what it seems.There are two main plots, and several subplots, to this film, which takes place on a train bound for Berlin. Writer/Director Peter Dalle (also playing the role as the conductor of the train) has assembled an impressive cast including swedish legends Lena Nyman, Gösta Ekman and Robert Gustafsson. Overall, the acting is excellent.Skenbart offers some rather twisted slapstick comedy combined with more subtle black humor (like the nun who loses her faith and starts cursing violently). It's like Killinggänget meets Peter Jackson (Braindead, Bad Taste) in Schindler's List. I laughed during most of the film, and when i woke up the next morning i laughed even more. An intelligent film for fans of Swedish comedy.
zaarqon ...and this movie easily exceeded my expectations. The fact that it is written and directed by Peter Dalle led me to believe it was in style with other films I'm used to (and bored with) seeing him in. Anyway, I grudgingly went along to see this flick and that I'm glad for. This stuff has humour and depth. 9 out of 10. See it!