AnhartLinkin
This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
Philippa
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Geraldine
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
macias-5
I am sick when I see such scenario -- Nazis bad, Bolsheviks good. Riiiiight -- it looks like in Western Europe nobody really cares that people were murdered in Soviet Union, and not in one or two death camps. There were established whole "lands" of death camps.Nobody would survive "the escape", because people coming from German side were treated as spies (even prisoners of war). I realize that the move is a fiction, but it should not insult the memory of the people who died in Soviet Union.Soviet reality ordeal still waits for its director brave enough to make a movie showing that Stalin, Trocki, Kamieniew, Dzierzynski, etc. were not just politicians, but insane monsters beyond imagination. That there were a lot of Jews in Soviet authorities but also Jews were victims (for example Anti-Fascist Front Leaders, murdered on an order by Stalin).There is well known story about two trains full of Jews meeting in Brzesc (German-Soviet border in 1939). One train was going from Germany to Soviet Union, the second from the Soviet Union to Germany. And Jews from both trains were escaping and both were laughing of stupidity of the others.The plot was easy to fix -- train going to Switzerland instead of Soviet Union, believable, more historically accurate... So another attempt of Soviet glorification or just a stupidity of the director?
Daniel Karlsson
Unartistic/mainstream, unfunny, pointless. This film has more in common with standard modern Hollywood than French filmmaking; over-structured and over-timed, and lack of atmosphere, emotions and charm. The cinematography is mediocre; ok but nothing to be impressed about. It has some interesting twists, like Jews becoming Nazis and communists, and, perhaps, a hidden irony over those ideologies. It's not getting anywhere though. It's not an art film and I wouldn't recommend it for family entertainment either. Overall, it's decent, but not worth seeing in my opinion considering the supply of other movies.2/5
george-102
It's amazing how many people seem to be complaining about the unrealism of this film. Given that anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see that the film is not trying to be realistic from scene 1 onwards, the question is not whether the film tried to be realistic and failed, but whether a film about the Holocaust must try to be realistic to be any good.The trouble is that unless as part of the performance the entire audience is deported in cattle-trucks, slowly starved, and then gassed, it is rather difficult to see how any film can be realistic about the Holocaust. So, if there are to be movies about the Holocaust at all, or if they are to do much beyond telling us that the Holocaust was ghastly (we knew that, didn't we?)they have to give up on trying to be realistic, and try to look at the Holocaust in an indirect way. This is where I think "Train de Vie" succeeds, for example by the deliberate parallels between the society inside the train, and the society that helped caused the Holocaust. I could list them at length, but if you've seen the movie and didn't notice them, you won't be convinced by anything I say, and if you haven't seen the movie, I'd rather leave you the pleasure of discovering them for yourself.I never actually thought of the film's relation to "Life is Beautiful" until reading the IMDB comments, after I'd seen both films. Well it's very hard to compare the two films, but I don't think "Train de Vie" needs to be ashamed of the comparison. True, Roberto Benigni does not star in it, and that is a heavy handicap for any film. On the other hand I think I like the exuberant un-reality of "Train de Vie" better. After all the portrayal of the Holocaust in "Life is Beautiful" is just as unrealistic as that of "Train de Vie"; the only difference is that "Train de Vie" revels from the first sceneto the last in its unreality. If we must be unreal, let us at least enjoy it.
beppeochjag
The film Train de vie is a story about how to cope in a time of horror. It is essential to never loose your humour and imagination even in time of war. To stay sane and alive you can turn to insanity. A great paradox but what in life isn´t. I think that we need new ways to look att the holocaust. The hole story is dependent of the end without the ending Train de vie would be rather distasteful i can admit to that. But the ending makes you stop and think and realize that everything you´ve just seen is a figment of the narrators imagination. Constructed by him for his own mental survival. I think that this is a warm and wonderful film, much because of that it is open for many interpretations. Plus the music is absolutely great!
