robert-temple-1 This is an earlier film by the French/Romanian/Jewish writer and director, Radu Mihaileanu, than his two great masterpieces LIVE AND BECOME (2005, see my review) and THE CONCERT (2009, see my review). Although this film, like all Mihaileanu's films shot in French, is readily available on French DVD, and even with German subtitles, the only version released with English subtitles is an old NTSC video, which has never appeared in DVD or even in PAL format. It is thus very difficult for an English-speaker to see this wonderful film. Unlike the two later films just mentioned, this film contains broad elements of comedy and whimsical Jewish humour, although the context of the story is deeply tragic. The story concerns the inhabitants of a small rural Jewish village in Transylvania known as a shtetl. The European Jews had lived primarily in these shtetls for centuries, ever since they became dispersed more than a thousand years ago with the destruction of the Khazar Empire, at which time more than two million Khazar Jews, later known as Ashkenazis, took refuge wherever they could from the Caucasus to the Rhine and tried to keep low profiles to avoid the endless pogroms and persecutions which threatened them from that time on. This time it is the Nazis who are in the next valley and making their way towards this little shtetl, with the inevitable deportation to the death camps which will follow. And so the village idiot, who is not the idiot he seems, comes up with a brilliant idea: the Jews will deport themselves instead of sitting there and waiting to be deported by the Nazis! They will sell off as many possessions as possible to the locals and buy an old train, which they will refurbish with fake swastika signs and fresh paint, and put themselves into cattle cars and drive the train towards the Russian border where they may be safe from the Germans. Those amongst the Jews who can speak German have to impersonate German soldiers and sit in a luxurious train car up front with leather seats, barking out harsh orders from time to time and behaving sadistically. The tailors in the village make all the necessary fake Nazi uniforms with no trouble. This desperate attempt to escape is treated with full humour, and there are many laughs. We see a charming view of shtetl life of a small Jewish community who have always lived in the middle of nowhere, as self-sufficient as possible. Eventually the train is ready and the entire shtetl population gets into the train cars and goes forth on their madcap mission of self-salvation. The driver is an engineer who has never operated a train before, and we have many funny scenes where he tries to pull levers based upon the operating manual which he holds in his other hand. A tremendous number of harrowing adventures take place on the journey: partisans want to blow up the train because they believe it is genuinely a Nazi train. Then the train is stopped by real Nazis, whom the Jews outwit. They keep running out of food and wonder where to find it. It is a raucous odyssey. The film is done with great sensitivity and skill, which is no less than we would expect from Mihaileanu. This film won 12 international awards, and is a classic of its kind, although there are certainly not many of its kind!

charlesdias This is one of the best humor movies I've ever seen. It's really hard to mix a war plot with nice fine humor. Some try it but the result is very bad. This movie is an exception, it's great and funny.I think the soul of this movies is it near naive humor. There is no that boring kind of "intelligent and cool humor for intelligent and cool people". It's plain humor works fine.But don't think this movie is just humor because it has a humanitarian story bellow the humorous cover that touches the heart. It's about human beings doing their best to escape from death.The soundtrack of this movie is great. I love the music, it's fabulous.It's a great movie worth of seeing.

Swangirl There's quite a bit going on in "Train of Life" but it's worth following. The premise is that a shtetl (Jewish community) fears it will be deported to a World War II concentration camp. The village fool, Shlomo, comes up with the idea to purchase a locomotive, train some of the villagers to talk/act/dress like Nazis and head for Palestine in hopes they can fool the real Nazis. Okay, the premise is far fetched. That's a given. But for this film, it works. The close-knit village buys into the plan and sets to work creating the ruse. Shlomo rises about his "village idiot" persona and finds new worth. The fake Nazi commander, Mordechai, begins to take his role a little too literally. There's a subplot about some of the young men converting to Communism. And a small band of resistance workers who try to blow up the train. But the star of this film is not one person, it is the village. They've banded together to survive, which isn't lost amid the humor. There's true fear and hope. Some may feel the villagers are made fun of and lampooned, but there's a healthy respect for the Jewish customs and family closeness in this film. Watch the scene where the villagers prepare for the Sabbath during their journey and you'll see what I mean. Too many films to count have focused on the reality of the Holocaust. There's no deny that it was a horrific event that should never be forgotten. This film does not desecrate or abandon that truth. It simply adds a new dimension worth exploring.

eetstatik Totally anti-semetic. The Jews in the village are seen as being idiots, liars, and squabblers. The comedy for the most part is dull, the directing rather unclever, the emotions nil, the character development less, and worst of all it even seems to harbor, intentional or not, resentment against Jews, even though it was written and directed by a Jew: as i have already mentioned the Jews are seen as children,but the exploration of guilt of pretending to be the enemy is barely, almost tacked on really, explored. At one point a character even says "Our Nazis are better than the other Nazis. Our Nazis are beautiful." It might have been the writer/director realized how anti-semetic the script was and threw in some heavy handed symbolism to fix it, but failed. But the worst thing isn't the movie, but the fans. When you dislike a movie like this they tend to label you as corporate shill, as uneducated about film, as falling prey to Life Is Beautiful and its "fake," emotions. Sad you can't point out how bad a movie is when it's lesser known or underground, because so many nowadays fall pray to the belief is it's less known, it's somehow better. I have news for you, that's practically the same mentality of thinking the bigger the budget the better the script. They are both equally shallow, just the former philosophy is harder to criticize because everyone wants to be a "rebel" and be underground. So say what you want about Schindler's List or Life Is Beautiful, you don't have to love them, just don't be think this is a masterpiece in comparison.