Scene from Night Train
Originally released in 1959, the film that marked its time and contrasted with other contemporary images from the Polish School era got refreshed in digital technology for a special limited release in France.
The abstract and formally ambiguous Night Train remains an exception within the palette of Polish films of the same period. Devoted of any explicit reference to the heavy historical and political context of the 1950s, the film yet manages to capture the essence of the end of the Polish Spring, its accompanying disappointment and anxious atmosphere.
Keywords such as claustrophobia, paranoia and fear are captured within a frantic Hitchcockian atmosphere that marks the collapse of society and individuals all crushed by evil politics and wars. Most of the plot of is set in the enclosed space of a moving train. A group of people meet by accident during their journey. Each of the passengers is lonely in their own way, and each one has their own tragedy. A psychological study, as the director said "about the hunger and desire for feelings". It also contains a crime-story motif - there is a wanted murderer on the train. The travellers become very aggressive and almost lynch him.
The film travels trough various cinematic genres as the camera scrutinises the intimacy of the cabins filled with passengers on a train that is headed towards the Baltic seaside. Jerzy Kawalerowicz builds a sort of post 1956 Polish microcosmos falling into a nocturne journey heading to an unknown dawn. Wrapped in vibrant realism and rawness, the film remains one of the most striking images of the era.
A man eager to remain hidden behind his sunglasses is forced to share his train cab with a woman escaping her lover. As the train leaves without any possible return, the police on board is frantically tracking a mysterious killer lost amongst the passengers. The train cuts through the night, carrying unlikely encounters and stories that lead to a cruel and violent manhunt, that transforms simple vacation-goers into terrifying revenge and blood-thirsty creatures.
Pociąg / Night Train/ Train de nuit directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 107’, B&W, original release: 1959, digitally remastered
Itinérances - Ales Film Festival (Ales): screening 24th March, 2012
Ciné-Club de Claude-Jean Philippe (Arlequin, Paris): screening 25th March 2012
Avant-Première (Le Balzac, Paris): 27th march 2012 at 20:30
Le Reflet-Médicis (Paris) : 3-week run starting 28th March 2012
Les Cinéma de Grütli (Geneva, Switzerland) : 4- week run starting 4th April 2012
Le Rex (Mamers), Le Palace (Ferté-Bernard) : 25th April to 1st May 2012.